Loyalty
by TheBatKid
Summary: A young girl has Derek Morgan questioning everything he knew about children, and what they're capable of.
1. Peaceful and Surprised

**Loyalty**

In Quantico, Virginia, under a burning hot sky at the very end of summer, there was a muted activity within the BAU.

Derek Morgan always enjoyed the quiet days, in which he could read through independent research and share a laugh with his teammates. It was rare for them to enjoy what they were doing. Usually, the pleasure came later, when they had cuffed and sent down whoever it was they were chasing, and made the streets that little bit safer for the world. On days like this, so calm and unhurried, it was as though they could forget what lay beyond them, what their next psychopath was plotting.

"You know, we haven't been called up for a case in a while," he pointed out to Prentiss, who was sat a little further behind him at her own desk, itself in front of Spencer's; "If we're not careful, we might actually start to relax."

"Don't say anything! You might jinx it," she scolded, though her voice was light, brushing her neatly cut black hair from her eyes so as to better see what she was writing.

"I doubt that," Spencer cut in while he sat at his desk, coffee in hand and speaking through a hum; "The reason we think people can 'jinx' things is because we're not paying attention to it before they point it out, so we're more aware when the thing in question happens."

The pair just rolled their eyes as he went off into a tangent, either not realising or not caring that both of them had stopped paying close attention. Spencer was a fact-machine, and so it was in his nature to reel them off when he heard something incorrect. Asking the man a question was opening up a world of pointless titbits of information, not all of it for the situation at hand.

"Hopefully it lasts for a while," Emily eventually piped up, when the man had become distracted by something else on his desk; "That last string of cases bled me dry. I've seen enough crime scenes to last me a lifetime."

That was when Rossi appeared, late, and with his usual look of guarded responsibility as he went towards his office; "You're in the wrong job, then. Crime scenes are our studios."

"I think I'd prefer one!" she called in reply, and she caught the slight upturning of his lips when he reached his office door, which he promptly vanished into. It was unusual for him to be late. It seemed the day was ripe for the peculiar.

"Hello, my darlings," it was Penelope who appeared next, dressed from head to toe in a bright and outgoing outfit, all of which never failed to surprise them but had lost at least some of their punch over the years. She carried in her arms a stack of papers, and it was Derek who jumped up to help her.

"What're all these?" he asked. There was enough to make the 'Save the Rainforest' campaign cry.

"These, my dark knight, are the illegal websites I have to go through for all that nasty stuff that keeps us in work," she told him, that smile on her face never wavering; "They're as gruesome as you would expect."

"How did you manage to get through them all?" he asked.

"Sheer will and a large collection of fluffy toys surrounding me," was her response, and she gestured for him to help her carry them into her office, where she had just implemented a new hierarchy with her toys. They stood now huddled around a proverbial King and Queen, themselves dressed in gowns of grand jade, and with tiny crowns atop their head to further seal their power. It was a strange thing, to walk into a Technical Analyst's office and find what could only be described as playthings.

Outside, in the bullpen, Spencer was going through what he had left neglected on his desk the day before. He had much research left for his upcoming book, but he was confident it would make fine reading, should the right person pick it up.

"What you got there, Reid?" Aaron Hotchner asked when he went past, stopping on route to his office. He also wore a guarded face, but there was a sort of genuine curiosity to it, something innate within the man that made him both approachable and respectable.

"A pet project I've been doing between cases," he replied, though he didn't look up, marking off sections of the book for future reference; "I've decided to write a book about the relevance of monarchies and how they affect global standing, economic status and the overall political well-being of their countries."

Aaron raised an eyebrow at Prentiss, smiling at her as she gave her own; "Look out – we might lose our resident genius to politics."

"You don't have anything to worry about," Spencer reassured; "Politics doesn't give me the same sort of mental challenge I get from the BAU."

His words were met with laughter, and he laughed too, though he wasn't sure what was so funny. He had learnt to simply mimic them in that regard, for he himself had no idea what made him so amusing to them, other than the idiosyncrasies they found endearing.

Derek returned, and with him came the muted activity that had been at large. Reid was going through one of his many reference books when he heard the door that led to their department opening, and he looked up at the same time as Morgan, who looked to have been reading through something more pertinent to their job.

From the door, a young girl came through. She was no more than eleven, her hair long and brown, and her eyes, though interested, seemed to hold within them an impish spark. She wore a pair of faded jeans that were patched with butterflies and a long coat that hid her shirt, red and with oversized buttons, and apparently deep pockets in which her hands were buried. When she caught sight of the confused stares – belonging now to Prentiss, Reid and Morgan – she smiled.

"Hey, sweet-pea," Derek was the first to speak, and did so with warmth in his voice, though not without bewilderment; "Where's your Mommy?"

"Are you the BAU?" she asked. Her voice was confident, unlike what they expected a lost girl's to sound like, and Spencer's brow furrowed. It held a firm English accent, too, which only served to raise more questions.

Aaron, who had apparently caught sight of her from his office and had left it to ask what was going on, caught the tail-end of the question, and answered in his guarded tone; "Yes, we are."

She smiled, pulling her hands out from her pockets.

"I think you might want to talk to me."

The room at large were stunned as the sunlight glinted from the blood on her palms.


	2. Calling the Reinforcements

A child in any case presented problems. Even when suspects, guidelines were to treat them with the utmost of care, attending to both their needs and the needs of the investigation, which sometimes worked in contrast to each other.

So it was that Derek offered to interrogate the girl, as he was the first one who had spoken to her, and therefore stood the most chance of getting a reaction. He readied himself in the cream and brown corridor that held the interrogation rooms, themselves a metallic colour, and fitted with a separate room wherein the team would observe through a one-way mirror, tinted on the other side.

"She has a social worker with her, by the name of Alice Brubeck," Hotchner informed him, at his side with his inscrutable expression in full force; "Get in there and see what you can find out. Don't put her under any unnecessary stress, but if you think you've got a lead, follow it."

Derek nodded.

As he walked into the interrogation room, he was quick to take note of a few things. The girl looked up, her eyes wide and a deep brown in colour, as beside her a woman was sitting, holding in her hands a small book. The woman's shoulders were tense; he could see by the way her blonde hair sat over them, the slight creases in her mauve sweater that implied being pulled, and how her eyes darted back and forth between the girl and himself.

"Hello," he greeted, taking the seat opposite them, which was cold and uncomfortable. His voice was guarded, but he tried to convey some sense of warmth, even in light of her apparent misdeed; "My name is Agent Morgan. I have a few questions I'd like to ask you."

The girl shook her head; "No, you have a few questions you _have_ to ask me."

He noticed her tone had become sharper, as though his choice of words had offended her in some way, and noted it down in one of his many black notepads. "I apologise. I have a few questions I have to ask you. Miss Brubeck, are you ready?"

"Yes," the social worker replied, then spoke to the girl; "I'm here to make sure Agent Morgan doesn't try to make you to say anything that might not be true. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"And if you feel like you have to take a break, I'm here to make sure they give you one."

The girl nodded. With a straight face she perceived the woman, her expression unreadable, though soon she lost interest in her and turned back to Derek. Her lips twitched into a smirk.

His stomach turned as he rested his forearms on the table, leaning against them in an attempt to seem relaxed, but focused. It was a strange thing, the subconscious mind. He wanted to appeal to hers before anything else, for it held more weight in his line of work.

"What's your name?" he asked, expecting some manner of resistance.

"Alaric Aldis," she replied, and before he could feel surprised went on; "It's a boy's name. I don't like it."

Derek looked her deep in the eyes, as though he thought he might find a spark in them that revealed more than she was saying. Why was she being so forthright with information? Why would she have walked in to the BAU if she were a murderer? None of it made sense.

"How old are you?" he inquired.

"Eleven and a quarter. My birthday's in May."

"How did you find yourself here?"

Her eyebrow raised; "Here, or in America?"

Derek gave her his warmest smile. Still, something within him viewed the girl as just that, and it spoke of disbelief that she was capable of harm.

"Both."

"I moved here a year ago. I wasn't told why, and it took me a while to get used to everything. I used to live in London. I was born in a place called Cornwall. To get to this place; I walked." The ending revelation was accompanied by a shrug. It was clear she had no more to say on the matter.

"Where are your parents?"

"Hm," she paused. With a sense of unease about her, but still with her smirk, Alaric leaned back, folding her arms across her chest; "Somewhere."

Derek took note of that. If the girl had arrived with blood on her hands, and no parents, that was lead enough for him.

"Have you hurt your parents, Alaric?" he asked.

"No."

"Have your parents hurt anyone else?"

With her same smirk, having morphed into something cruel and alien, Alaric moved her finger to her nose and rested it against the side. Miss Brubeck beside her supressed a shiver. It didn't go unnoticed.

"Ma'am, do you need to take a moment?" Derek asked, to which she shook her head.

"No, no – I'm fine."

But Alaric had looked up at her, and her eyes were boring into her face as though searching it for weaknesses. Miss Brubeck looked down at the girl, forcing a smile.

"You should take a break," Alaric told her; "Mummy tells me fatigue is awful for women."

"If I took a break, who would be here to make sure you're alright?" she asked. Still, the smile never wavered, and in offering the girl to answer the question she was giving her an indirect signal of trust.

It fell wide, however, when Alaric looked up at Derek, meeting his gaze with her own in what could only be described as a staring contest.

"Mister Morgan won't lead me," she said; "He can't. Not when I show him what I've got."

Derek's eyebrows rose. He was too late to stop them, too late to mask the confusion on his face, for he had been under the assumption the team had stripped her of anything that could hold evidence; that included the little pink watch they had found on her wrist, redundant as it was.

Alice Brubeck was too shocked to say anything as Alaric dived into her tall Ugg boot. From there, she produced a small phone – a Motorola Razor, capable of data storage of up to one Gigabyte – and clicked on the touchscreen to a small film.

As the sounds of whimpers filled the air, Alaric looked back to meet Derek's gaze, and spoke in an inquiring voice; "Why didn't you search my boots?"

On the phone, as clear as day, was a film of a young woman, trapped in some dark and dingy hole with chains around her legs. When Derek snatched the phone away from her, Alaric furrowed her brow.

"It isn't nice to take," she growled.

"Who is this?!" he asked, voice stern and assertive, but the door was opening to JJ, who went to take the phone; "Where is she?"

As the evidence was put in a small plastic bag, Alaric gave him her cruel smirk, and rested her finger against her nose.


	3. Psychopathic Tendecies

Alaric was a girl of an immature nature. She asked for sweets to keep her sated and made requests to watch television, the latter of which were denied, and when not getting her own way, she would sit and pout for a few moments before forgetting all about it.

Spencer had suggested that she was emotionally stunted – that was, she had the physical development of a girl her age, but the mental development had slowed to make her act like a girl three years her junior. It was in his opinion that she had been subjected to a number of horrific experiences in her life, and so her brain had 'gone in on itself' to make her unable to look into them at a deeper level, to hide from the spiralling insanity that would have otherwise consumed her. It had logic to it. It was a proven science that the brain could do amazing things. But it didn't explain how she had come to be in the BAU, blood on her hands, and somehow comprehending of the situation she was in.

Derek sat on his comfortable leather chair in the bullpen, looking at the neat arrangement on his desk. Pens were in place and documents were stacked to one side. The computer had the keyboard shoved right up against it, and the mouse beside that, perfect angles wherever they could be. It was then he knew he was being affected by what was going on around him. When the world was in chaos, or at least his immediate world, he always cleaned up his desk to give the illusion that he was in control; to right wrongs on a minor scale, if he couldn't do so at large.

"Morgan," he heard Hotchner call, and looked up to see him gesturing to their meeting room; "We're putting what we know together."

It was with a solemn eagerness that Derek followed him.

The team were gathered around the sleek black table, including Penelope, who gave that her tight-lipped smile she wore when she was uncomfortable. On the television directly in front of the small group, there showed images of dead girls, all of which had blonde hair, and scars at their temples that showed the killing blow.

"These are the victims of a recent string of murders along Quantico," JJ was up by the screen, as detached from the horror as she could be while she pointed at each girl; "Lucy Harper, Demi Trite and Melissa Jocasta. All were found dumped in parks, with the same wounds, and the same method of death."

"Penetration of the temple," Spencer muttered, intrigued by the file in front of him; "If you want to kill someone quickly, that's a good method. The temple is the weakest point in the skull, and behind it there's a major artery. It's been nicknamed 'God's Little Joke' because of how easy it is to cause a fatal wound."

"But why would the UNSUB stab someone through the temple?" Prentiss asked.

"At the moment, because of Alaric's evidence, we're guessing it's at least two UNSUBS – her parents. What I don't understand is why they would send her to us, covered in blood. Surely they would want her to carry on their work?"

Spencer leaned back; "Maybe they have someone else?"

"Or they want to be noticed," JJ suggested; "These girls turned up with the same stats, but no one had a lead on who killed them. There was no evidence, no prints; nothing. They covered their tracks."

"Then why go through all that effort, just to send their daughter to us?" Derek asked.

Rossi, who had been quiet as the ideas were thrown down, suddenly piped up; "Was there anything else on the girls that might give us more answers?"

JJ nodded; "The scalps of each girl had stitches in them. The coroner said whoever made them had some medical background, but was at best an amateur, and at worst a backstreet doctor. The brains were only partially intact."

Garcia choked on her drink. Used to the horrors of the world, she no longer had the urge to vomit, nor to run to the door where she would search for a window and fresh air, but she refused to believe she would lose her aversion to the twisted ways of mankind.

"They're taking their _brains_?" she asked, and when JJ nodded, went on; "Why would someone even do that? What – I just – it's-!"

Spencer, whose brow had furrowed in deep thought, interrupted her; "The brain has a lot of history to it; early philosophers used to think that it was where the soul was located. Democritus argued about the three-part soul; intellect in the head, emotion in the heart and lust in the liver, while Hippocrates theorised that 'bad feelings' came from a sickness of the brain."

"What I want to know," Derek eventually said; "is how all of this relates to that little girl out there."

As though to add emphasis to his words, or to remove all doubt as to whom he was talking about, the agent tilted his pen in the direction of the door. It led to the bullpen, which itself went off into a corridor that led to a dozen others, and in one of them, Alaric was sitting with her social worker, no doubt a new one as the other had run off flustered.

Hotchner was the next to speak; "If she's connected to these homicides, that's one thing. If she's an accomplice, that's something else entirely. She's obviously uneasy, and she doesn't seem to like talking to anyone; anyone except Morgan, that is."

Derek said nothing. It left an unwelcome sense of dread in his gut, the thought of speaking to her again, but to save innocent lives he would do that and more – if he had to, he would apply measures they usually kept for adults.

"Her profile doesn't match an UNSUB's," Reid pointed out after a moment of quiet; "Her reluctance to discuss her parents suggests a want to protect them, but at the same time her being here endangers them. She's uneasy, but she looks us in the eye when she's talking, suggesting she's telling us the truth. And when she gave you the phone, Derek, she didn't look at it; she actually averted her eyes away from the film. None of this adds up to a murderer."

"What are you suggesting, Reid?" Morgan asked; "She hasn't told us anything that would incriminate her yet, other than the video. Until we get that bloodwork back, we're not even sure it belongs to these girls."

"Yes, well, we've got another victim to be thinking about right now," Hotchner said; "We need to know where we're heading next-"

It was then that his phone rang. Giving a furrowed brow to the team, he answered it, saying 'Hotchner' just before his face became unreadable once more. By the time he put his phone away, the team was almost leaning towards him.

"They've found another body. Let's move."

As the team hurried past the comfortable child's cell where Alaric was being kept, the girl was reaching up to look out of the tiny window in the door. Her eyebrows rose when she saw them, and in a moment, her expression changed to something nervous.

"Are you alright, Alaric?" her social worker, a kind man of about thirty years and with a deep brown beard, asked from the sofa.

"It's starting," she replied.


	4. Bloodwork

The body was the same; always a blonde girl, killed via the temple, and with identical stitching that hinted at the scalp having been removed. This one – apparently belonging to a Georgia Lewis – was dumped in the nearest park, left without so much as a mock burial, like the murderers were taunting the team.

By the time they had returned to the BAU, Derek was ready to question the girl again.

It was due to the age of body that he was so eager to carry on. The girl had been left in the open for exactly three days, if they were to believe the coroner, yet Alaric had only arrived that morning; seventy-two hours after the victim's death. When Georgia Lewis had been reported missing, as they discovered after they confirmed her identity, it was a whole week before her approximate death, which could mean only one thing.

The phone's film evidence had been old footage.

Why then, Morgan asked himself, had Alaric chosen to come forward now? After four victims, each separated by three months, her involvement in the murders must have gone deep. Even with the idea that she had turned herself in as an act of remorse, she showed absolutely no signs of being remorseful; rather, her manner suggested she had nothing to apologise for.

Alaric had been called into the interrogation room ahead of time. She sat in the hard metal chair, on a pillow in an attempt at comfort, and sipped on something with the strong aroma of chocolate, but had the look of tar.

When Derek entered, she gave him an adorable little smile from behind the mug; so adorable, in fact, that he found himself smiling back.

The social worker beside her looked up at him and gave an almost approving nod. He knew what it meant – by smiling, he had either worked to put Alaric at ease, or had shown her they were no more threats than her cup.

"I saw you run off," she told him as he sat; "You and your team. Did you find someone?"

Derek opened the file; "We did. A young girl named Georgia Lewis, found in a children's park just a few miles south."

"That's bad," Alaric frowned at him. There was an unreadable expression in her eyes, but he fancied he saw in them genuine sadness. "Did you find anyone else?"

"Should we have?" his question caused her to fall quiet. What sadness he thought he saw had been replaced by something else; something happy.

"That's good."

Frustrated as she gave the tell-tale signs that she would say no more, Derek pushed forward some of the pictures. His eyebrows jumped up a slight amount when he saw her look away from them, first at the corner of the ceiling, then the floor, until she finally settled back on the pictures.

He noted it down as he spoke; "This is how the girl was arranged. Does any of this look familiar to you?"

Alaric took a moment to scan over the image. At the angle she had bent her head, Morgan was unable to see her eyes, and it was only with a wriggle of the nose that he realised she was moving her face at all.

"Yes," she said. Derek furrowed his brow, but kept his face soft, as though scolding a wayward child.

"Now I know that's not true."

"How?" she challenged in response, but it was too guarded, more an indignant growl than a question.

"I know," he repeated; "and I want you to start telling me the truth. Does any of this look familiar to you?"

Alaric narrowed her eyes at him, but looked again. The body was old; that much she knew. The skin was grey and the hair tangled with dirt, while on her clothes, maggots were writhing. The social worker looked uneasy beside her, but not because of the girl as his predecessor had been – he seemed to be questioning the need for showing her the pictures.

"I can assure you this isn't what we wanted," Derek told him, which had the effect of making Alaric look up. The agent's hands were clasped together and in front of him, resting on the now-open file, as he looked the social worker in the eye, "But with Alaric as the only witness, we have to make sure we check things through with her."

"_Suspect_," Alaric growled; "I'm your suspect, not your witness!"

Derek leaned forward and gestured to the pictures; "Does any of this look familiar to you? And don't lie to me again, Alaric. I'll know."

It was for a moment that he thought she wouldn't respond at all. Alaric perceived him first with a look of pure anger, and then it melted into something softer, something he recognised to be the beginnings of trust. She leaned forward to him as though taking him into her confidence.

"No," she admitted; "It doesn't."

He pushed the papers aside.

"Alaric, do you or do you not know where your parents are?"

She was silent.

"Alaric," he said; "Answer me."

She averted her gaze from him, looking up instead at her social worker, who despite his best efforts had yet to gain her trust.

"I don't want you here," she told the man; "I want you to go away."

The man did his best to mask his surprise. Alaric had been nothing but polite, if a little distant, but this outright refusal to be in his company had caught him off-guard.

"I can't. It's illegal for you to be questioned without me here."

"I don't want you to be here."

The door opened to Spencer, armed with his own file, and when he approached Morgan he looked absolutely bewildered. It was a strange sight to see.

"Morgan, we've just got the bloodwork back," he told him; "You're not going to believe this."

Derek fixed him with his hardest stare; "Should we be discussing this here?"

Alaric had looked up at the doctor with the sternest face she could muster. It was with this face that he met her, staring as though in wonderment, and without so much as a hint to the unease bubbling in his chest.

"It didn't match any of the victims."

"What, so there's a fifth?" he asked.

"Morgan," Spencer looked at him with serious eyes; "She came in with pig's blood on her hands."


	5. Truer Still

Tasked with researching the girl's background and family records, Garcia found nothing. There was no mention of an Alaric Aldis anywhere in America; it was as if she had never existed. Hotchner told her to continue on, and if anything should come up, to let them know without delay. After the bloodwork discovery, their interest in her had peaked.

As the day went on, so did they make new discoveries, and not all of them were good. Alaric's shorter-than-average height meant it was easy for her to slip by unnoticed, and measures had to be put in place to make sure she didn't go 'wandering.' She was fed, but would speak only to Morgan; by the end of the day, she broadened her horizons to Reid as well as, to a smaller extent, JJ and Prentiss. Hotch scared her, she claimed. Rossi had no wish to interrogate a child he didn't have to, and so it was left to those four to speak with her when necessary.

The phone was searched, which led to even more films being found and sent for analysis to confirm authenticity. There was no mistaking those girls' faces, though. Each victim was filmed. At one point, they thought they had glimpsed an UNSUB in the corner of the screen, but it turned out to be a shadow cast from an unseen window; and so they came to the conclusion the girls were being held in a shed.

Morgan and Reid were sent to all the nearby butchers and abattoirs to discover where Alaric could have come across pig's blood. There were few – more than Reid would have liked to walk into, for the smell of animal carcass and death were abundant there, and even in his line of work it was unpleasant.

They came across an old one, which was called '_Pete's Pork Preparing_.' It was a quaint place, with a large window that looked out into a quiet street, itself with houses quite suburban and middle-class, most of which had a 'red brick' look. There were no picket-fences and children weren't playing out on the road, but it was nice enough that the few people they drove past were talking to each other, and neighbours waved when they caught each other in neat front gardens, bordered by hedges and black iron gates.

"Seems an ideal place to raise a kid," Morgan observed from the SUV; "No shattered windows, no drug dealers, no prostitutes; almost no crime at all."

Reid nodded, but his eyes were on his satchel, which he was adjusting over his shoulder to make himself look dignified; "This place doesn't correlate with our UNSUB-creating environments."

"Depressed, bored teenagers maybe, but not murderers," Morgan agreed. Then, almost hesitantly; "What do you think about this kid, Reid?"

The genius sunk back into his seat. His face was conflicted, mulling the question over, and Morgan took the silence as an incentive to continue.

"She's invisible to the system. Her profile doesn't correlate to that of an UNSUB's, no matter which way we look at it. She doesn't recognise any of the footage we've got from the phone, or even the way the victims were arranged. What connection does she have to these murders?"

Spencer shook his head, either in defeat or bewilderment, and spoke in a ruminant tone; "I don't know yet. Hopefully, the owner can shed some light."

Pointing his chin towards the abattoir for a moment, Reid then opened his car door and slipped out, leaving Morgan to hurry after him as he walked towards the door.

"The owners?" he asked as they approached.

"Mr and Mrs Merriweather," Reid replied; "They moved from Chicago with their son twenty years ago and opened this place."

"Who's the son?"

"Gabriel - now lives in Vegas with his girlfriend."

It was open, for another day had dawned and they were in a rush to catch the murderers, not fancying their chances of another kidnap since Alaric was in their custody.

It had been JJ's idea that the apprehension of their daughter could have triggered some emotive response from the parents. If they truly were the killers, and not victims of a loss themselves, for it had been speculated that the girl was kidnapped from her home and coerced into doing her abductor's bidding (something later thrown out, as she showed no signs of being under anyone else's influence), then Alaric's capture had either been pre-planned or complete impulsive. No matter what the case, they were sure to have been affected by it.

Inside the shop, there was a white counter, complete with a built-in white container to show fresh cuts of meat, and Reid made the observation that there was no pork on sale. Morgan spied a dented, golden bell on the top, which he hit and let his hand linger over, reading offers and specials that were chalked into an old-style blackboard on the countertop.

A door behind the counter opened. Within, Reid glimpsed carcasses hanging from metal hooks in the ceiling, and heard a man shout at someone to pass him a saw. The friendly-faced woman that appeared was in complete contrast to what he was expecting.

She was elderly; not in an infirmed way, but in a way that was kind and grandmother-like. Her hair was a grey bun and she wore one of the customary white butcher coats, but hers was not stained by blood, nor was it dirty as he imagined her husband's to be. To complete her look, there were glasses perched at the end of her nose with delicate black rims, themselves dotted white.

"Hello," she said, the corner of her eye sockets creasing as she smiled at them; "How can I help you boys?"

Morgan took the initiative, showing his badge as soon as she had come close enough to see it; "We're with the FBI, Ma'am. We have a few questions for you."

"Oh, I hope we're not in any trouble." She said. Her face was puzzled, and Reid could see flickers of thought in there.

"No," the genius said; "We're actually interested in someone who came through here yesterday; a young girl. Do you remember her?"

The woman's face lit up in a smile; "Alaric? Yes, she comes by to check up on us every once and a while. Funny little thing, she is."

"Check up on you?" Morgan asked.

"We had a few problems with mice, you see. Kept getting into the backroom and made everything unsanitary. I didn't want to kill the poor things, and she came up with another way to get rid of them for me. Wouldn't accept pay, either. Quite the sweetheart, that girl."

Reid raised an eyebrow, muttering to Morgan; "No signs of animal abuse."

"Sociopath?" he asked, but he knew even before Reid shook his head that there was no way she could be.

"If she were a sociopath, she would have accepted the money. They only seek their own benefit."

Missus Merriweather's face grew concerned, until even her hazel eyes looked soft; "Alaric isn't in any trouble, is she? I can't imagine a poppet like her getting mixed up in crime. Those brothers keep her busy enough."

Both men looked up. It was as though they had been slapped in the face, and Morgan didn't have time to make himself look polite when he asked; "Brothers?"

"Well, of course," Merriweather's eyebrow rose; "The Truman Twins."

Reid got his phone out and immediately dialled Garcia. It felt like they had struck gold, which in effect was true, because one could only assume 'Truman' was Alaric's real surname and she had given them a fake one.

"Ma'am, I'm going to need you to tell me about these twins. It's important."

"Poor dears. They mean well, but they're just so clumsy that most people don't give them a chance," she sighed; "They were born with – oh, what is it called? – 'mental retardation.' Is that the politically correct term? They have the minds of five year olds."

From behind him, Morgan could make out Spencer telling their teammate to look for an 'Alaric Truman,' and he was almost giddy with the progress.

"How old are they, ma'am?"

"Oh, not old. About twenty-two. Their sister is very protective of them, so be careful," she laughed; "She may do just about anything to protect them!"


	6. Protective

Back in the conference room, Garcia had given to JJ a full list on Alaric Aldis; that was, Alaric Truman.

"She lived in a small coastal town in England before moving to Quantico a year ago," the blonde said, passing out a sheet with the meeting's summarised notes; "Mother and Father are Alice and Greg Truman, both of which have been missing since yesterday morning."

"Around the same time Alaric turned up at the office," Spencer observed. His voice lingered over the letter's sound, eyes narrowed and staring at nothing in particular, and it was clear from the occasional twitches of his face that his mind was working hard.

"What about these twins?" Rossi inquired. He was quick to scan through the notes, and quicker still to process it all in his mind.

"Henry and Lewis Truman, born in August, 1992. The medical records Garcia managed to pull said they were starved of oxygen during birth, and so were left with 'limited mental capability. They've been in and out of mainstream schools and their parents haven't claimed any special support for them."

As Derek looked down at the boy's pictures, he couldn't say they were the faces of killers. He was no believer in physiognomy, but something about the bright green eyes staring back at him, devoid of intelligence, smiles vacant of malice that showed bright white teeth, and their trusting expressions didn't make him suspicious.

"Where are they?"

JJ checked her notes. When she looked up, it was with a resigned sort of face, as though she had just confirmed the worst case scenario; "Missing as of yesterday morning."

It was Rossi who laid out what they knew, and no one thought to interrupt him as he did so. His wisdom bled through into his words; somehow, experience had made him their favourite man to outline the case, for his slow and calm voice always hinted at a deeper knowledge.

"So both the parents and the brothers go missing at the same time Alaric turns up at the office," he said; "and now we've got four dead girls on our hands, with no idea about a fifth."

"Let's look at the victims," Derek suggested, sitting forward in an attempt to take control; "They're blonde; all roughly the same age; straight-A students; and nothing points towards a criminal record. These girls are spotless."

"So why would they target people who haven't done anything to harm them or society?" Hotchner put forward. It was an open question, and no one leaped to answer it. In the polished mock-wood style of the conference room, there was a sense of deflation in the air, as if all of the evidence they had gathered was no more than a collection of machine parts without the master cog.

It was Prentiss who spoke next, in a tentative voice as though she herself was uncertain; "What about Alaric?"

"What about Alaric?" Derek asked. A feeling of protectiveness flared up inside his chest – he was unsure why, for he had only spoken to the girl a handful of times and never about anything more than the case. Perhaps it was the fact that it appeared she had no one, save for a few social workers she neither trusted nor spent much time talking to.

"She was the one who came to us. She was the one who put that pig's blood on her hands, and she was the one who showed us the phone. How can we be sure she hasn't walked away from whatever her family's doing? Maybe this is her atonement?"

Spencer shook his head; "The way she acts doesn't fit in with that. She isn't remorseful. And if she were, she would be more willing to give us information. No – there's something more to this."

Silence descended over the conference room. With it came an air of solemn thought, as no one had a clue what their next step would be, or how they would save the perhaps fictional fifth victim.

"Morgan," Hotch broke the air again. The agent looked up. So lost had he been in thought that it was actually on the third call that he took notice, and Spencer beside him raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, Hotch?"

"I want you to go to Alaric and try to get more information." He said; "Whatever all this means, I'm willing to bet she can help shed some light on it."

Derek furrowed his brow; "I've tried my best, but she's not talking. If she wanted to say something she would have said it by now."

"Maybe not," Spencer suggested; "One of us just has to distract her social worker, and she might tell you something. Prentiss, you can do it, can't you?"

"Isn't that illegal?" she inquired. It was with several resigned pairs of eyes that her question was met, and she realised that the law was in need of bending to see justice done. "Fine. I'll go find him. But what do I talk about?"

That was one of the few questions Spencer had no answer for. He shrugged, and when it was suggested to her that she talk about the weather, Prentiss just left with the promise of 'I'll figure something out.'

A few minutes later, Derek was sat across from Alaric in the interrogation room, watching as she chomped her way through a multitude of chocolates. Her hands were covered in melted sweets, but she seemed not to care; such as he would expect from a girl with only two 'younger' brothers to play with.

"Let's talk about your family, Alaric," he suggested. The words made her still. The sweets in her hand fell, until they were making small piles on the table.

"What?" she asked. A file was pushed towards her, complete with the pictures of her brothers. "Where did you get these?"

Derek was shocked by the sudden alarm in her eyes. It was as though he had just uncovered something so sacred to her, he had committed blasphemy. But, he had a job to do, and he would do it whether or not it raised her ire.

"Harry and Lewis – they're your brothers?"

"Where did you get these pictures?" she asked; "Did your tech…technical analyst get them? These are from medical records."

Derek once again held back surprise; her knowledge went far deeper than he thought; "You didn't tell us you had brothers."

"Because you people would hurt them!"

A sudden burst of anger had Alaric throwing the files across the room. Her fit lasted, for she turned her anger to the table, which after a few tries was turned too, and it was after this that Derek had to pick her up and restrain her. He held her close to his chest, feeling as she struggled against him and kicked out, but he was much stronger and larger than her and held fast.

"Calm down, Alaric!" he shouted.

"You're going to hurt them!" was her scream; "Get off me! Let me go! I can't trust you people!"

As if possessed by something – his own desire to protect, perhaps – Morgan let one of his hands reach up from where it was being clasped across her, stroking through her hair. Alaric stilled; it was then that he could hear her crying, almost a faint sob, and realised that tears were falling down her cheeks.

"It's alright," he soothed; "It's alright; I've got you."

"Let me go…you're gonna hurt 'em," she muttered, but her voice was weakening, and her kicks were growing softer.

Derek held her close. As if protecting her from the world outside, which bustled with agents, murder and all sorts of things not meant for children's ears, he leaned forward on his knees, rocking her almost to an intrinsic rhythm.

"What the Hell happened here?" he heard a voice. It was indignant enough that he knew it to be the social worker, but he didn't look up as he stroked Alaric's hair.

"That's right, baby girl," he muttered as she relaxed, still crying; "That's right – it's alright, now."


	7. Click

After the outburst, Alaric fell silent. She would give them no more information, not even when they played bad cop good cop. Hotchner tried to use sweets as a way to coax her out of her self-imposed muteness, yet she would only stare at him as though he were an intruder, someone who was encroaching on her fortress of solitude.

Alaric soon refused to even look at the agents. It was as if in discovering her brothers, they had become her enemy. Rossi was the first to suggest that her protectiveness was presenting itself in an unusual manner, and Spencer confirmed it to be the case, citing; 'Silence is the only way she can be sure we don't know any else about them.'

It fell to Derek to get more information out of her, though he protested against it. After the initial outburst, he was wary of going back to her. He was afraid, he would admit, that her being a child and obviously under stress had gotten to him, and he didn't want to be any further involved with a case so compromising.

But his boss insisted, and so he went in with the files with the blankest expression he could muster. He needn't have worried – Alaric kept her eyes down.

"Hello, Alaric," he said, sitting down on the chair and laying out the file. She said nothing.

Derek watched her for a moment. Her movements were controlled, small, like she was trying to keep them hidden from his eyes. Her head was bent at the neck in a position that couldn't have been comfortable, yet she refused to raise it. Her shoulders were hunched as though making herself as tiny as possible; no big feat, considering she was tiny before.

"I want you to help me," he told her; "I need to know where your family is. Can you answer some questions for me?"

More silence. At the mention of her family, Alaric allowed one leg to make an agitated swing, but it fell shy of kicking him.

"If you're able to give me some answers, there's more chance we'll be able to find your brothers."

Another pause. Then, in a hesitant voice, Alaric spoke; "What did you call me earlier?"

Derek's eyebrow rose; "Earlier?"

"When you grabbed me. You called me something. What was it?"

He thought back to when he had grappled with her for calm. He hadn't been thinking at that point, fuelled only by his desire to help, and realised then that he had probably broken some regulation.

"I called you baby girl." He admitted after a moment.

"Why?"

"I don't know. It was just a knee-jerk reaction."

Alaric nodded. As she raised her head to meet his gaze, he could see in hers a sort of dullness, so void of her earlier unease that it was hard to say he was looking at the same girl.

"The BAU are supposed to help people. But I can help them. Leave my brothers alone; you'll hurt them."

"I can promise you, Alaric, we'll do everything in our power to make sure they're not harmed."

She snorted; "I've watched TV. You shoot people you think are threats."

"What kind of TV do you watch?" he challenged, and there was a hint of teasing in his voice, his face breaking out into a smile; "Because everyone we meet is a threat. Do we go around shooting everyone?"

Another pause, and then came her hesitant observation; "Prisons are overcrowded…"

That made him laugh. It was the innocence of her voice that caused it, and afterwards, he found himself at ease, watching as she straightened her back to look at him in the eye. When he smiled at her, he realised that she smiled back. He was uncertain why that put him in such good spirits.

Outside, in the bullpen, Reid was going over his case notes with his finest-point pen. He had no need to – it was a wild hope in his heart that by doing so, he would stumble across something he had missed, or his mind would like two seemingly inconspicuous things and they would have their answers. But such was the absence of information that he couldn't do so.

"What are you thinking, Reid?" Prentiss asked from where she sat, holding to her head an ice pack in an attempt to stave off her headache.

"Reid's always thinking," Rossi replied as he leaned against her desk; "It would be better to say 'What aren't you thinking?'"

The genius looked up; "Is Morgan still in there with her?"

His question was met by two nods, and he felt a hopeful bloom in his chest. Derek would have either made some sort of progress with the girl, or he was wearing her down. In any case, it was a chance they would have otherwise not had, should none of them had spoken to her when she first walked into the office.

"This just…doesn't make any sense. At first, she tells us almost everything we want to know, save her parents, and then when we talk about her brothers, that's it. Zip. Zilch. Nothing." Prentiss shook her head, which did her no favours with her oncoming headache, and she sat up in the hopes it would weaken.

No such luck.

Rossi nodded; "Almost as if she thinks we're going to lock them up."

"But why would she think that?" Prentiss asked; "If they're with their parents, and their parents are murderers, they're just as much victims as anyone else."

Reid thought for a moment. Then, as if it had all clicked, he jumped up and went to the evidence room, where there was a small setup of what they had gathered so far. With the nearest pen, he began to write down what he knew, and then speculated on it.

What he realised came to him like a bolt of lightning.

So quickly had Prentiss and Rossi raced after him that when they reached the evidence room, he was only half-way done with his scribbling. Then, he spoke, in a tone just a note away from enlightened.

"Children's minds are easily manipulated," he said; "It all makes sense."

"What makes sense?"

"Alaric isn't telling us about her brothers because they're involved," Reid said; "She's protecting them. The parents are using them to carry out the murders."


	8. Plans Unravelled

Spencer took the next bout of questioning.

He focused not on Alaric's apparent distrust of them, but rather, on what she was willing to talk about. He queried about her parents, and found she was happy to tell him most of what he asked; when he talked about her brothers, though, she was silent. It was through gentle probing that he found she was quite an accomplished reader, telling him of Nietzsche and Plato; Poe and Wilde; Steinbeck and Lee.

"Those are very advanced titles," he told her, a hint of surprise in his voice as the harsh light above washed her face out; "Who gave you them?"

She shrugged. "Mum always gives me new things to read. Says it's good to expand our minds beyond what we think they're capable of."

Her top, which was revealed to be a 'Guardians of the Galaxy' T-Shirt, was stained from a mishap with her third cup of hot chocolate that day, and Morgan had been sent out to find an appropriate set of clothes to replace her old ones. Spencer hoped he had the good sense to buy something themed, rather than the frilly things he saw other girls wearing.

"Well, she'd be right," he observed, and then went on; "Does your mother try to do the same with your brothers?"

Alaric looked up at him with a slight air of annoyance, as though bored with the constant questions about her family. He thought she would outright refuse to answer him, but he was surprised to find he was wrong – the one time he was happy to be so, too.

"No," she admitted; "She and Dad think they're not worth the effort. Lewis can't read, and Harry tries his best, but he only knows three words."

Spencer spoke with as much nonchalance as he could muster; "Did you read to them a lot?"

"Yeah. They liked picture books. Their favourite is The Gruffalo."

"Did they like the sequel?"

"Yeah, but I always find it so sad that the Child didn't have a mother. They never seemed to realise she wasn't there. I didn't mention it."

It was then the genius realised Alaric's tone had slipped into fond reminiscence, as if sharing with him a memory that had great significance to her. The girl looked at the wall, staring not at it, but through it, thinking back to a time in which Spencer played no part.

"Dad used to tell me they weren't going to amount to anything, but it's not true," she sighed; "Harry's good with his hands. He can be taught to work, if someone has the patience to do it. Lewis isn't as good, but that doesn't mean practice won't help him. They had lots of friends where we lived, before Mum and Dad made us move away."

Cocking his head to one side, Spencer wondered for a moment why she felt the need to tell him so much. What she had just said hadn't been in response to him, but rather said out of her own volition. The light poured over the table top and bled down to their chairs, yet the corners of the room were dark, filled with neither pot nor plant, and he noticed how she glanced all around as if checking they were safe.

But he said nothing. He would allow her to use him as a sounding board, and would take from their chat all he thought was relevant to the investigation.

Soon enough, she gave him a curious look; "You're smart, aren't you?"

He nodded.

"How smart?"

"I have an IQ of one hundred and eighty-seven, an eidetic memory, two doctorates, two Masters, can read two thousand words per minute-"

"So, a genius," she interrupted, a bemused smile on her face; "You're smarter than me."

He rolled his shoulders, not wanting to agree with her, and said instead; "Sometimes, there are different kinds of smart."

"Not the way my parents see it. Everyone is either book smart, or they're dribbling babies. That's why they don't like my brothers." She shook her head; "They only like me because of my IQ. Do your parents like you because of your IQ?"

He brushed the question away easily, though not without a pause that was just long enough to be noticeable; "What's your IQ?"

"One hundred and sixty-four."

"Wow," his eyebrows rose until he could have sworn they disappeared into his hairline, so shocked was he that such a small, immature-acting girl could be so intelligent; "That's very smart. But, why then…?"

She shrugged; "Why act grown-up, when grown-ups are so boring all the time? At least with Lewis and Harry, I don't have to be upright and proper. We can just play stupid kid's games and have fun."

"And I'm sure they appreciate how good a sister you are to them," he said; "which is why we need you to answer some questions for us. We need your help to make sure we can catch them and your parents."

Alaric looked back down. He pursued the subject, promising her the good care of her brothers, that they would see her as soon as they were brought in, and that her parents would be unable to hurt them when in custody.

"You're going to blame them," she said; "You'll blame them for this mess, and then they'll be put in prison or executed or…or…"

He reached out to grab her trembling hand. She had gone could, he realised, so much so that she felt almost like ice, and he thought for a wild moment that she might shatter into a thousand pieces.

"I promise you," he said, voice slow and deliberate, warm despite the fact she was so distrusting of him; "we will do everything in our power to make sure they're safe. Nothing will happen to them."

Her gaze pierced his own as deeply as a sword would stab through his heart; "I have no idea where they are."

"Not even a clue?" he prompted.

"No," she admitted; "because I was never involved."

His eyebrows rose once more, though her words made sense and, secretly, he had been harbouring a similar suspicion; "What do you mean?"

"I was never involved with the girls. I found out about them two weeks ago."

"Then why did you come here? How did you get all that evidence?" he asked.

"When I first found out about it, Harry had let it slip when we were playing. I went looking for things to back it up. My brothers may not be smart, but they're not liars. I found pictures. I found that phone I'd never seen before. And because I knew you wouldn't tell me anything if I was a witness, I came to you as a suspect instead."

Spencer looked at her in disbelief. For such a young girl, to go out and find evidence in her own home, to take the initiative and hatch a plan that would see her parents brought to justice; it was brilliant. It was something he would have never expected – certainly not an approach many would leap towards.

"Do you know your brothers are missing?" he asked.

"I thought they might, when I disappeared," she confessed, genuine sadness in her voice; "My parents were talking about it. I heard them at night, when they thought I was asleep. So, I had to do something."

"This was a very clever plan. Why didn't you tell us more about your family, then?"

"I didn't want you to know my brothers were involved. I wanted you to think they were victims."

"We would have never have thought anything else, Alaric. Their condition means they're easily manipulated."

"Monkey sees, monkey do," she sighed.

There was a silence in the room, and in it Reid realised just what he had discovered. Not only had Alaric hatched a grand plot in an attempt to sway the BAU, she had admitted to him; him, not Morgan, not Prentiss, and not JJ. It must have meant she had reached the end of her tether, or had seen her web of lies coming apart.

"Why did you make us go through the investigation?" he asked.

Her face tinged red with embarrassment; "I wasn't sure I was right about everything. This is your job. You guys would know."

More silence. Then; "Would you like me to get you anything?"

She thought for a moment. Her brown eyes caught the light, glinting as though in the sun, and then said; "I want to get out of this room. And talk to Mister Morgan."


	9. Child of the Office

Alaric had never taken the time to look at the bullpen in detail.

It was a small pit, large enough to fit a dozen desks, each with their own human attendant. They were decorated in different ways; some had family pictures; others had idyllic holiday shots; a few were messy and most were clean; and there were the key ones, wherein the main team sat and went about their work. These were different, because they were empty.

She saw the heads of other agents as they went about their work. Reid led her onwards, towards his own desk which was laden with files and stationary, though all she could focus on was the stillness in the air. It was broken only by the constant tapping of three keyboards, with their straight-faced owners glaring at some case file or other.

The team had reacted well to her confession. They would, considering what it meant. No longer picking apart her profile, Hotchner was able to send his group to the more important aspects of their work, such as finding out where her parents were hiding their victims, and where they may have taken their vulnerable boys.

"I don't see Mister Morgan," she told him, reaching up to catch his hand. It was all Spencer could do not to let his face react. Instead, he looked down at her with a warm smile stretched across his lips, tight though it was.

"He'll be back soon," he assured, and then gestured to his desk; "Sit here. I'll have someone bring you some water."

Alaric's eyes widened; "No. Stay here. Please."

"I have to get back to work."

"I am your work," she reasoned; "Please don't go. Not until Mister Morgan comes back."

Without any further argument, and not wanting to upset her on the off chance of a fit, Spencer acquiesced. He stole Morgan's seat by his desk so he could sit beside her, the girl having taken his own, as he thought on what conversation he could make with someone so young.

He needn't have worried, though. Alaric had caught sight of something on his desk – a slinky, bought for him by Garcia as a gesture of friendship. She picked the rainbow coloured toy up and allowed it to bounce to the floor, where she gave a jerk of her hand and sent it racing upwards again.

"You have toys," she observed, which made him shake his head.

"Not toys," he said; "Trinkets."

"Why do you need trinkets?"

He thought back to what Penelope had told him. The reason her office was decorated the way it was, and why she arranged them to surround her computers. It was a defensive mechanism, born out of her want to focus on the good of life, and the trinkets she gave them were to her an extension of this goodness. Gifts, even in the BAU, even with such a dark use, were something intrinsically positive.

So, that's what he told her. And for the most part, Alaric followed. She needed an explanation for the 'goodness' Garcia spoke about, for she herself had no idea what that was, but other than that she showed brilliant understanding. Once again, Reid was reminded of her intelligence. It was her experience that was lacking.

"Where do you go to school, Alaric?" he asked.

"I'm home-schooled," she replied; "Mum and Dad spent a lot of money on my teacher. She's private. But she says I'm really good."

Reid got out a pen; "Who was your teacher?"

"Mrs Butterball."

"Mrs…Butterball?"

"Jennifer Butterball," she nodded; "She told me she changed her name when she was younger to her 'childhood nickname.' I don't know why. Grown-ups are weird like that."

_Home schooling would explain why she's immature,_ Reid thought; _Socialising with other kids is a key part of development. If she's only in contact with her brothers…_

"Where did Mister Morgan go?" she asked, pulling the man out of his reverie. He blinked at her in bewilderment at first, and then answered.

"He went out to get you some clothes," with one hand, Spencer text the new lead to Hotchner, who was out surveying local parks for more potential victims.

She pulled a face that was a cross between sad and anxious. With a quiet voice and a swing of her small legs, she muttered; "He's going to get me a dress."

Spencer laughed. Rare for him, to share a genuine laugh with a child, but so despondent was her voice that it was all he could do.

"He won't. He wouldn't be caught dead in that section."

"Why didn't my social workers go instead?"

"Because…" he paused. To tell her the real reason, he would need to confess that she was making her social workers uneasy, and that her involvement in a case had made her somewhat of an FBI responsibility. Instead, he settled with the lie; "He really likes shopping."

She smiled. Her little pink lips rose in such a way that Reid realised she was still somewhat innocent, despite her engagement with something too gruesome for children's ears. She clung to the goodness that her brothers portrayed, acted as though she could share what only ignorance could give; a complete view of the world too wholesome, and that never extended further than the end of their home's driveway. As she fiddled with the slinky, a tongue peeking out from behind her lips, he found the memory of her age roaring back with a vengeance, and wondered to himself how he could have ignored it for as long as he had.

It was a few minutes before Derek arrived. Having been given the news that his worst fears weren't true – that Alaric was not a cold blooded killer, but a clever actor and, perhaps, a puppet master as well – he wore a bright smile, carrying in his hand a shopping bag with a host of new clothes.

"Hey there," he greeted them both, and gave Alaric the bag; "I wasn't sure what you'd like."

"That sounded like an apology," she responded. It earned her a smile from both men, but she saw neither, too busy rooting through the bag filled with what she was expected to wear.

Pleasantly surprised, she praised Derek. He'd bought her clothes that coincided with popular superhero films, to which Reid muttered to his co-worker that the girl probably had no link to female children's shows, and there were many small jeans there that were her size, with only a few being too big. None were adorned with butterflies, but they were decorated with mismatching patterns and cross-stitches, made to look cosy.

"There's a bathroom over there, sweet pea," Derek told her, pointing to the door labelled with two different people-shaped icons; "Go and get changed. We'll be here when you come out."

Without a protest, Alaric disappeared.

Reid took the opportunity to tell Derek what he'd learnt, in detail. The girl, having confessed her innocence, went on to tell them how her parents had forced her to learn things too advanced for her age; in retrospect, things that had separated her from any potential peers. She could speak Italian and French – a skill given to her by numerous private tutors over the years – and had an extensive reading collection. Her tricks of deceit had never gone as far as involving the FBI, but she had admitted to using her superior intellect to get the things she wanted.

"Then why does she act like she doesn't know anything?"

Spencer shuffled in his seat; "She says it's easier pretending to be stupid than admitting you're not. People mock but accept the dumb, and ostracise the clever. The clever pose a threat to their egos, she said."

"In those words?"

"In those words."

Derek pulled his hands down his face. Alaric was a tricky one, playing her cards close to her chest, and when he asked the next question he could already tell what the answer was.

"Did she give you her address?"

"She says she doesn't know it," he replied; "and that might be true, considering she has no contact with the outside world. Aside from the Merriweather's, I doubt she even knows anyone beyond her family."

"It's a possibility she lives in that street," Morgan pointed out; "We just go along that road and find the house that's empty. It must be her house."

"There are multiple different factors for why a house could be empty – night shifts, school clubs, families on vacation-" Derek gave him a look, and he switched to the point of his talk; "But she told me she has a private tutor. Jennifer Butterball."

Derek laughed, bitter as it was; "She's given you a fake name."

"Not so. Until we have Garcia run it through the systems, we can't be sure of anything."

It was then that Alaric bounced back into the bullpen, dressed now in an Avengers shirt and black jeans, and hurried over to the men. She was careful to avoid the agents and the agents were careful to avoid her, but when she reached Morgan and Reid, she took the slinky from the desk to play with it again.

"Feel better?" Derek asked.

She nodded. Her smile had turned shy, and he wondered momentarily if larger audiences sparked some sort of nervousness in her.

"Good."

"Aren't you supposed to be looking for another victim?" she asked. There was no sadness in her voice, which worried Derek. Disassociation was a dangerous thing when it came to children; a sign of abuse, mostly, but also a sign that they were becoming desensitised to the horrors of the world. Despite popular belief, that path was a dangerous one.

Spencer let his eyebrows rise; "Why? Do you think there's another one?"

"I heard some of the others talking," she admitted; "Something called a 'stressor?'"

"Yes, what about it?" the darker agent asked, noting the incident in his mind to bring up with them later.

"Isn't my leaving _kind of_ a stressor?" she asked; "Because they might be stressed that I'm gone?"

"We've been working on that lead. Until we have evidence to back it up, though, we can't give much credit to it."

"Oh." She looked down at the slinky, puzzled expression on her face, and said nothing more.

There was a long while of quiet. The air was filled with tapping, Morgan and Reid now focused on paperwork, and the occasional jangle of the slinky. Alaric made no noise; indeed, there was no noise to make, for she had asked all of her questions and Derek had returned, which meant she was content until the next disaster happened.

But Spencer felt as though she were bored. Unable to sit back and watch her entertain herself – it was an oddly lonely sight, watching a girl so used to having her brothers play alone – he instead reached over and fished out of his bag a book. It was beautiful and hardback; a new one, with an unbroken spine.

"Here," he told her; "Read this." He passed it to her, and she noted the weight it held, more like a dumbbell than a book.

She read the title with ease; "Poor Fellow My Country?"

"It's a book about Australia in the run-up to World War II. One of the longest novels in the world."

She nodded. With a happy smile, she opened it and leaned against his desk, legs bent so her feet were planted on the floor, and back pressed against the desk's side with her hair caught between them.

And so the agents went about their work, a child at their side, who was more content to lose herself in a fictional world than to dwell in reality.


	10. Enthralled

"So, where did you get the name 'Aldis' from?"

Alaric looked up from what she was doing, which was fiddling with one of Garcia's lesser-used laptops. The analyst had set it up with a game she remembered from childhood; an emulator that allowed her to play Pong, and so far her small charge had been enthralled.

Derek had come to check on her when it seemed no one was making progress with the case. Searching up on a Jennifer Butterball was hard; she existed in the system, but she had multiple addresses which took time to drive to, some to fly to, and it was soon discovered she held several convictions that made her unsuitable for mainstream teaching.

"Skyrim," she told him.

"The game?"

"No, the chicken," there was an impish smile on her face, rather like an adult might give to a beloved but gullible friend, and went on; "I played it when I lived in England. I liked Captain Aldis, and choosing his surname made mine a form of alliteration. So, I was Alaric Aldis."

He gave her a smile, which she took and went back to her game. It was strange to see her so absorbed in something. Usually, her eyes would be searching the room, locking on the toys that were dotted around Garcia's office and the pens with fluffy tops, but so addicting was Pong that its simplicity made it all the more charming. She wanted to win it.

There was no winning in that game.

Derek watched her for a few moments, and then found himself saying; "You've made an impression on Reid."

"Did I?" she asked, not looking up at him.

"He said you made some very intelligent comments about that book. Apparently, some English Literature PhD holders wouldn't be able to pick out what you did."

That made her chuckle, if bitterly so, and reply in a distracted way; "Are they just giving those things away now?"

Morgan made a note in his mind to talk to Garcia about the games she passed on. He didn't mind a few, but the addicting ones would have to be shelved, for Alaric was a personality too easily enthralled and he wanted her at the top of her game. Arguably, at the top of her potential.

It was true that Spencer had been impressed with her. Perhaps he'd stretched the truth a tad – when the genius had said some PhD holders, he meant very few, and those were the lucky ones that made astute comments in one thesis and never made one again – but the sentiment was the same. The girl was a star at reading and analysis. Her mother's influence, he would guess, though it pained him to admit it.

Alaric soon tired of the game, despite never winning it, and shoved the mouse to the side in boredom. Intoxicating though it was, it wasn't as majestic as Skyrim, didn't have as many options as the Walking Dead, with as little appeal to it as Flappy Bird, other than being highly addictive.

"What's wrong?" Derek asked when he noticed her pout. It was a trick of the light, really; she was contemplating what to do next, what she could be allowed to do in a place where work meant the difference between life and death.

"I wish Harry and Lewis were here," she said. Her voice was small, withdrawn, as if even though she trusted Derek, there was still a mountain to climb between them both; "I miss them."

He crouched beside her to look her in the eyes. It was then he realised the sparks of intelligence that lay there, masked with apparent ignorance that she wore as a ploy. Deceitful, perhaps – tricking those who knew no better – but it was a tactic that had kept her sane at least.

"We will find your brothers, Alaric. I promise you."

She nodded; "Mister Reid told me the same thing."

"There; you've got two of us promising you it, now. And between the two of us, we can make sure nothing hurts them, isn't that right?"

"Two of you, compared to an army of other agents?" she raised an eyebrow, incredulous expression doing wonders to wound Derek's ego; "I'll believe it when I see it."

Outside, Hotchner was busy looking over the case evidence, sipping on a cup of coffee even the most seasoned of BAU members would admit was terrible, but their favourite. So often had he glanced over the notes that he realised he had memorised them all, and his standing there was only for self-serving reasons; he didn't want to feel like he was doing nothing at his desk.

"Seems to me like we've got nothing else to go on but a teacher, one phone, and whoever the next victim might be," Rossi said from where he appeared, silver beard on show, eyes squinted in the not-so-dim room. He looked at the board, decorated with girls' pictures, filled with descriptions of gruesome crime scenes, and managing somehow to fit their details on them as well. To the side, there was a desk, where they had left a few files that held the victims' medical records, including autopsies, and the other side was where the blind-shuttered windows that faced out into the bullpen were, as well as the door. The room itself was covered in mock wood panelling, in an attempt to give it at least a pleasing appearance.

"There's got to be something we're missing here," Hotchner mumbled; "What is it?"

"I had Reid on it, but he got distracted by the girl and now he's out looking for Jennifer Butterball."

"I still can't believe that was a real name."

"I guess Alaric's done with lying to us."

"Let's not get too optimistic," he smiled.

They stood there for a few moments in utter silence. It seemed illogical for them to be so bewildered. Alaric was a child – a child without much experience of the world – and yet she had brought them to a case they would have otherwise passed over, for lack of evidence. She had single-handedly brought the entire BAU to a standstill for twelve seconds when she walked in, and she had been manipulating them since. Yes, she was innocent, and both agents could see that Derek was getting too much involved with her, but she was a dangerous enemy to make should they have to make one of her.

"Morgan's Achilles heel, that girl." Rossi muttered after a while of quiet.

"She's rare." Hotchner responded; "But I doubt she's going to be much of a problem for him. I worry more about Garcia."

"Both Reid and Morgan are taking an interest in her. Did you hear them talking earlier?"

He shrugged; "We're talking about her right now."

"When we should be focusing on these girls," Rossi went up to one of the pictures, showing a young woman with a bright smile, looking at him with eyes so hopeful of the future.

More silence descended in the room.

"You know what I think?" Derek said; "I think you've got no idea how to use a gun."

"How hard can it be? You aim and shoot." Alaric protested.

"What about the kickback? What about the shot accuracy? What about the distance of the target? What if the target's moving? What if-"

The girl pulled a high-pitched voice; "What about if Mister Morgan answered his own questions?"

His laughter echoed through the room and into the bullpen. A few looked up, but disregarded it just as quickly and went back to their work.

"A gun is a dangerous weapon," he told her, demonstrating by pulling his out of his holster and pointing it at the wall; "Without the safety on, it has the power of life and death. When you point it at someone, you better be ready to pull the trigger. And if you pull the trigger you better have a damn good reason why."

She looked at it in silent awe for a moment. Locking on to where his holster was, she said; "You keep your gun near your heart?"

Another, fainter bout of laughter escaped Garcia's room.


	11. Home of the Heart

Alaric quickly grew comfortable in the BAU.

With Derek, she would take small walks around the offices, listening about how much work they did and how, when the going got tough, they were there to ease people's suffering. Murderers were locked behind bars, and their most prolific cases were sometimes put up on a 'Wall of Infamy' – that was, a wall on which they placed the most recommended case studies for eager young profilers.

"People who want to look at mutilated bodies should be psychoanalysed, surely?" she suggested as she glanced over the mug-shots, the bloodshot eyes of convicted killers staring down at her like the headlights of a demonic car.

Derek gave his customary chortle; "I've heard that before. Actually, we have to see a psychotherapist every now and again."

"In case you go insane?"

"Yep," he ruffled her hair, straight as it was, and laughed again when she rolled her eyes; "But our job's so important, we don't care what might happen to us."

Alaric clutched his hand, descending steps that seemed to wind and twist into dozens of corridors, all of which led to different parts of the building. For a place so large, there were far fewer staff than she imagined. The pair passed two ladies in pencil skirts, both of whom were busy on phones and spared them only half a glance, and a cleaner, who mumbled to himself as he tended to various stains and spills.

Her eyes took everything in, though. From the mock wood panelling to the cream carpets below; to the lights above that were set into the ceiling; to the exotic plants in stylish black pots; and the few rooms they passed wherein teams were discussing important facts. She saw it all.

"People find it hard to trust the FBI," she observed, though it was more a thought to what she had seen on television than in response to what was around her. True, the décor must have cost a pretty penny, but weren't the agents of the BAU entitled to an appealing workplace?

"That's because we're in a position of authority, sweet pea, and some people find that difficult to cope with. The media likes to portray us in a pretty harsh light, too."

His phone beeped and with an expert flourish of his hand, born from many years of practice, Derek took it from his pocket, reading the text Hotch had just sent him with lightning quick eyes; _Garcia found the address. I've sent Reid and Prentiss over, but I want you to take Alaric. See what she can find._

After hurrying outside, the agent made a beeline for his car. Alaric kept up – her legs were smaller than his, and she had to break into a jog to keep holding his hand – but soon they were at the black SUV, its sleek metal frame glinting with sunlight that provided little warmth, for autumn was rolling in.

The car ride was quiet. The girl, subdued by the fact she was going to search her own home for murder evidence, looked out at the happy faces that lined the streets, some of which busied themselves with crying babies, and others who were making the most of what little summertime there was left.

"Are you alright back there?" Morgan asked, looking at her in the wind-mirror. She nodded, but her face was pale. "Do you need a moment?"

Alaric shook her head; "I just didn't want to have to go to my house with this."

"Why not?" he asked. His attention was back on the road, for there seemed to be a lot of people driving that had slept with their instructor rather than passed the test.

She hesitated for a moment, but only a moment, as it seemed she was beginning to trust Derek – enough at least to see past his FBI badge; "The forensics are going to take all of Harry and Lewis' stuff. And they're going to go through everything we own, like my books and their toys, and we're not going to get them back."

"We'll only take what we think is relevant to the case," he promised.

"Does that mean you'll take everything in my parent's room?"

"If we think it's related to our investigation, yes."

Alaric fell silent. Sitting back in the leather seat, she muttered after a while; "Are we ever going to go back home?"

He had no idea what to tell her. As they passed the various shops that lined idyllic suburban streets, the neighbours chatting to each other in the sunlight amongst trimmed, high hedges, and the houses with slanted roofs that were in eerie resemblance to one another, Derek tried his best to not lie to her, but also not to make her worry.

"Sweet pea…" he said, and then; "I don't think so. If your parents are found guilty of homicide, they're going to be in prison for a long time. They won't come out until you're much older."

"Does that mean we'll be taken away?"

"You'll be put with a family that can look after you." He promised; "People who can support all of your needs, including your brothers."

"I can look after them," she said indignantly, as though he were questioning her ability, perhaps even her love.

"But you're not old enough to do it, and you have to think about yourself as well. How are you going to get a job and become world famous and make millions if you can't even go to school, hm?" he smiled at her, eyes bright, comforting her with the unspoken knowledge that he did think she would do anything for her brothers, but also that putting such a weight on her shoulders wasn't necessary.

Alaric looked him in the eyes. Hers were dull, subdued once more with the reality of what was going on; that her cosy, ignorant life had come unravelled, and she not only knew of her parent's misdeeds but also how they had involved her vulnerable brothers in them.

"I just want to get there." She told him.

"Well, you're in luck," he pulled up outside of her house – a large place, with grand arched windows on the first floor, and a wonderful array of wind-chimes that clanged on the porch. At the top, there were more windows, but one had the space-themed curtains drawn, as though hiding within a secret that caused great shame.

In front of the white house was a large garden, itself tended by professional hands, and cared for even as the owners had seemingly absconded. The hedges had been cut down, unlike the neighbouring houses, and soon Derek knew the entire street would be outside to see the police coming in and out of Alaric's home. It needed to be searched. They had to be sure they weren't dealing with more murders than they suspected. But that didn't mean he didn't wish it weren't a spectacle.

"Ready?" he asked, though he knew the answer.

"No," she replied; "but let's get it over with."


	12. Rooms

The house itself was beautiful.

The front hallway doubled as a foyer, with two large separate staircases that joined into a walkway above, where Spencer was sure there were hallways hidden behind the balustrades. Grandeur was evident; there was mock marble in the main hall, and beyond in the living room the floor had large, fluffy cream carpets and glass cabinets, complete with a sizable flat screen television mounted to the wall, a mirror mounted opposite, and positioned above a black sofa with red floral patterns.

He looked at the kitchen, too. It was stylish; black and white and with modern designs, cut off from the rest of the house as it was down another hallway that seemed to go on forever. Reid had noticed it after leaving the living room. Most of the rooms – the study, the small faux-library, the dining hall – all had archway doors that were possible to look through, rather like the yawning mouth of a tiger, but the kitchen had a white-wood door, making it impossible to see what lay beyond.

"This is a nice place," Rossi observed beside him when he returned to the main foyer. Somewhere above, they could hear Alaric hurrying down the walkway, and in seconds she appeared with Derek in tow. As they both walked down the stairs, Rossi went on; "I don't get it. Alice Truman was a gossip magazine editor, and Greg Truman was a mechanical engineer. They both had high-paying jobs, and then they just left it all to move here and become murderers?"

"Perhaps there was a dormant desire to kill in them that was reawakened?" Spencer proposed, but he was met with a raised eyebrow.

"If that were true, they would have slipped up by now. No – these are premeditated. These killings are part of a plan."

They fell quiet when Alaric approached them. Spencer smiled at her. It seemed that she felt more in her element at home, and had been giving Derek a tour in an attempt to distract herself.

"Why don't you go and find Prentiss, sweet pea?" Morgan suggested as he approached, a smile on his face, but both agents could see the solemnity in his eyes; "I bet she'd like to see the garden."

The girl peered at him for a moment as though unconvinced he hadn't an ulterior motive, but asked in a hesitant voice; "And you won't leave?"

"No. We'll be having a look at the upstairs, like I told you."

With a slight nod of the head, Alaric went in search for Prentiss.

Seconds later, Reid, Rossi and Morgan were walking up the stairs, talking to each other about what they had found and what they expected to find.

"Alaric's room is covered in books," Derek told them, to which Spencer smiled; "She's got a TV in there, but she says she hasn't watched it since they moved in."

He was right; her room was the first they came across, and the biggest, and wherever books could be left they were. Great hardback towers sprung up from all over the brown carpeted floor. The bookshelves were stuffed so full that they almost burst, standing tall enough to touch the white ceiling. Her desk was covered in papers, with pens and pencils, crayons and felt-tips, all littered around in messy piles, or scattered near her antique-like bed, which seemed hand carved, complete with silk white sheets and jade bedcovers.

"This place is like my dream," Spencer mused as he looked about. Even the desk seemed to be made of oak, set up against a large, beautiful window.

"Well, don't get too comfortable, Reid," Rossi said; "It's a crime scene now."

Derek led them then to the twin's room. It was at the very end of the hall, past the bathroom, like a little secret locked away from the rest of the world. Decorated in juvenile space adventure toys, the beds were single and small, made from something akin to metal but had the rusty look of corroded iron. The mattresses were lumpy and the bedcovers were dirty, but there were many toys, and a plasma television similar to Alaric's was mounted to the wall. There was also a large cabinet full of DVDs; they were all of the five to eight age range, some even lower, but it showed at least a gesture of care for the boys if it meant they were being entertained.

On one wall, there were pictures. Hand-drawn pictures, Spencer realised, when he approached saw the different shades, the care taken to make sure every stroke was right. When he inquired, Derek laughed.

"Alaric drew them for her brothers," he said. He walked beside him, pointing to each one in turn; "This was an old dog they had that died before they moved here. And this was the swing-set at their old park, after sunset. She said they liked to remember, so she took the time to draw them."

"This are…realistic," he said, almost with an air of wonderment.

"She's a great little artist."

Rossi was more concerned with looking over the room. Toys were hidden away in toy chests, and it was all clean. The beds were made as if no one had ever slept in them. The window's curtains were drawn. There was no desk on which the boys could write, if they had the faculty to, and there were no books other than large, over-the-top picture books, usually reserved for infants.

"So they lock them far away from their precious daughter…" he observed, making the others take notice of him; "And they give them only what they think their brains are capable of understanding."

"They're ashamed of their sons' disabilities but love them in spite of it," Spencer said.

"But why would they include them in the murders, then?" Derek asked; "Because we've seen a lot of screwed up stuff in our day, but this makes no sense."

"I don't know."

Outside, Alaric was busy showing Prentiss the different places in her garden. There were few instalments out there for the boys; what they included were swing-sets and a single climbing frame, itself reinforced and made safe with spongy-like material at the bottom, fashioned to look like wood chippings.

"And you see-"

Prentiss turned when Alaric cut herself off with a scream. She had tumbled, and the ground had opened up under her. She fell until she hit solid ground, groaning as little bits of dirt rained down, and a flood of light pooled around her.

"Alaric?" the agent screamed, hurrying to lean over the hole; "Alaric? Are you alright?"

"Yes!" followed by coughing; "I…there's weird stuff down here. I don't like it."

"What can you see?"

"I want Mister Morgan."

"Alaric, what can you see? Is there some way for you to get out?"

"I want Mister Morgan and Mister Reid!"

For where Alaric sat, huddled up in a spider-infested corner, was a dungeon. Great iron bars hung from the ceiling like in a medieval drama, and there were tables, tables with chains attached to hold down unsuspecting prey. She shivered though it was warm, the stench foul enough to make milk curdle.

"Get them!" she cried out, her voice shaking; "Get Mister Morgan and Mister Reid!"


	13. Torture Child

As a tide of forensic experts flooded into the garden, a steady stream of which entered and exited from the iron gates that bordered it from the front, Alaric clung to Spencer's back, her white cheek pressed to the bottom of his neck, and stared out into nothingness.

It had been one thing to imagine what her parents had done, but another thing entirely to see where they had done it. And under her house, no less. Where she had watched her brothers play, where she herself had played and made the most of her youth, people – girls – had been trapped beneath her very feet. Had been tortured, perhaps brutally. Those thoughts were a cyclone in her head, until she had gone muted, deaf to the happenings around her.

Spencer had given her a piggyback at her request. She claimed it made her feel more secure, and he wasn't about to argue when they had just freed her from a torture chamber. He looked at the workings of the forensics team, both fascinated and repulsed, with the hope that Morgan would arrive soon enough to talk Alaric out of her trance.

"What did you see down there?" he asked, but it received no answer. If it had, he feared what it might be. The chamber from what he had heard was one of the most complete the forensics team had ever seen; it winded and twisted into several different halls, sprawling like a city, albeit a dark and dangerous one. He caught the tail-end of a conversation that said there was an iron maiden, too, but he stopped listening soon after, perhaps to save his own sanity.

When eventually Morgan did appear, it was with a weary face. He looked first at the hole, now made wider and cornered off so the various teams could investigate, and then Alaric, who still had her cheek rested against Spencer's back. She was so despondent that he swore he felt his heart break. When he approached them, she neither moved nor spoke, so it was Reid who greeted him.

"What are we looking at here?" he asked as he stood beside him.

Spencer's arms were around Alaric's legs to support her, but he was no less serious when he answered; perhaps, Derek mused, it was because he was holding her that he lost none of his solemnity; "One of the biggest torture chambers they've seen in recent history. It apparently goes the whole length of this house, and the next two houses to the right."

"Jesus…" he looked up at the girl. "How is she?"

"I have no idea. She hasn't said a word since she came out."

Derek leaned forward to meet her gaze. It was dull, lifeless, and moved not to him or anything else that was going on around her. Trained on nothingness, her eyes were still.

"Alaric? Sweet pea? Can you hear me?"

Silence.

"I know it's hard, baby girl, but you have to try and talk to me, even if you don't want to. You can't turn in on yourself. That's the worst thing that can happen in this situation, alright?" he leaned forward to her, so close he could feel her breath, which was coming out in rapid, shallow bursts; "Please, Alaric. Talk to me."

More quiet. And then, almost like a butterfly's wings against a curtain, there was a small; "Why?"

Spencer frowned; "Why?"

"Why would someone do this to someone else?" she asked, her voice slow and deliberate; "How can they? Every girl they kept down there…" she gave a shudder. It was so strong that it almost made Spencer shudder, too, but he held fast, for he didn't want to drop the girl and make a bad situation worse.

"There are some messed up people in the world, baby girl," Derek soothed, running a hand through her hair, which served to detach some of the clinging dirt and twigs.

"Like my parents?"

He paused, but only to nod a few seconds later; "But you aren't. Which is the most important thing, isn't it? And you're here with us, safe and sound."

"They have my brothers. They're going to hurt my brothers, Mister Morgan. Can't you and Mister Reid find them now?"

"Call me Derek, sweet pea."

"And I'm Spencer," the genius added; "Call me Spencer."

She nodded. There was a pause before she pulled her head from Reid's back, looking at the hole she had fallen through now covered with forensics. It was like a horror movie; a tide of people dressed in white overalls, fitted with masks, descending into the dreaded chamber filled with all sorts of sick secrets. It made her want to vomit. But Spencer was wearing a nice suit that day, and she didn't want to ruin it.

"I want them home now," she repeated.

"We're doing everything we can to find them," Derek promised her; "and it doesn't look like your parents want to hurt them. They need them."

Alaric was silent again.

Once they had had enough of watching the forensics team, Morgan and Reid took the girl away. Without anything else to do, they put her in a car and strapped her in, taking her back to the BAU in the hopes that she would perk up somewhat, but found she only disappeared into Garcia's room as soon as they entered the bullpen.

"Gone to look at the toys, I'd bet," Derek suggested, sitting in his chair as they watched after her.

Spencer took his own seat; "I wouldn't doubt it. Children like to distract their minds with colourful things."

"Even geniuses?"

He nodded; "Even geniuses."

They sat in quiet for a time, soaking in what had happened and how fast things had transpired. They wished only that Alaric hadn't been the one to find the chamber; if an agent had found it, had fallen through that hole, they would have dusted themselves off and been no worse for wear. Shaken, perhaps, but not to the extent that she was.

"What are we going to do, Reid?" Derek asked, which made Spencer turn to him; "Alaric's not going to trust anyone else in a long time. You heard the way she was screaming for us down there. How are we supposed to hand her off once this is over with?"

He shrugged; "We have to. It's our job not to get involved any further. Besides, she has brothers."

"Brothers that might not make it out of this alive."

"Statistically, the majority of our cases don't end in UNSUB death, either in suicide or in fatalities of any other kind."

"But it's still a possibility."

Spencer shrugged. He couldn't argue with that, just that it was unlikely.

Inside Garcia's room, Alaric sat on her spinning chair, kicking the desk in a steady rhythm as she stared at the toys. It was a while before Penelope turned up, and when she did she saw the despondent look on the girl's face. Her smile never wavered. She had heard the report, and didn't want to upset her by gasping.

"Hey, Alaric. You know, you have pretty hair," she said; "Do you want me to put it up for you? We can try out some different styles."

And because she needed a distraction, Alaric agreed.


	14. Mischief Maker

"You have lovely hair," Garcia told Alaric as she twisted it into a plait; "Easy to handle, easier to style. You're a hairdresser's dream."

The girl sat as still as she could on the spinning chair, her eyes no longer vacant, but filled with wonderment. She asked questions, queried how Garcia had become so good at hairstyling, and when she was told that the agent used to love playing with her hair, asked why she had never pursued a career in hairdressing.

"Sometimes, things happen for a reason. I was needed here more than I was needed at some salon in Quantico." There was a mischievous glint in her eye when she added; "Besides, the BAU offers my two first loves; computers, and Agent Morgan."

Alaric's eyebrow rose, and she had to resist turning her head to look at her; "You love Mister Mo—Derek?"

"Not in a way like your mommy loves your daddy," Penelope said, mentally kicking herself when the words were out, but she carried on; "More in a friendly way. He's one of the few people I can trust with my life."

"Who are the others?"

"Everyone on the team."

Another raised eyebrow, though this time Alaric stayed silent. She instead chose to glance across the computers, the single blinking screen in the corner in need of repair and the toys that lined the shelves, each with happy, smiling faces that seemed so out of place. The agency was a world of murder. It was a land where the lawless were interrogated, the virtuous freed, and the downtrodden coddled. No amount of toys could have made it any happier, she thought, but it seems she was mistaken.

"How do you like Derek?" Garcia asked after a while of quiet.

"He's nice," Alaric admitted; "I trust him, so far."

"He and the boy wonder think you're a genius."

"Boy wonder?"

"Agent Reid."

"Oh, Spencer." Suddenly, Alaric got an idea, one that made her face stretch out in a smile, and she asked; "Think I can get away with calling them 'Uncle?'"

"Uncle? Why?"

"Isn't that what you do when you're young and you really trust people? You give them a name, like family. It makes them feel closer to you."

Garcia smiled. Her lips were the perfect shade of red, the girl thought, and her mascara was done in a way that wasn't quite regulation, but then again nothing about her was. Penelope loved her makeup; at the same time, she embraced who she was inside, taking up the title of the bubbliest personality in the BAU.

"I think that would be alright," she said; "After all, you are the youngest person in the building right now. That must come with some sort of leeway, right?"

They spent the next hour chatting about random things – books, computers, art, and even sports – until Morgan opened the door to check on Alaric. The room was bright; without windows, Garcia had bought higher-watt bulbs, which served to burn the retinas of unsuspecting agents needing her help.

"Hey there, girls. Having fun?" he asked when he caught sight of them. Alaric was happily kicking her feet in the chair, her hair now a French plait, and Garcia had been enthralled by her story of her old England home, which had been one of the few Victorian-era buildings that withstood the war.

"We're fine," Penelope told him with a smile; "Alaric's got a lot of interesting stories to tell."

"Does she? Well, maybe she can tell them to Hotchner. He wants to speak to you."

"Okay, Uncle Derek."

Morgan watched as she thanked Penelope and hurried off outside, led by Spencer to the interrogation room. She was babbling about her time with the technical analyst to him, and from what Derek could see, the genius could do no more than listen.

"Did you put her up to that?" he asked Garcia once they were out of earshot. She had taken her place back on her spinning chair, rearranging the toys around her computer in preparation for her next set of searches.

"Put her up to what, my darling?"

"That. Calling me 'Uncle Derek.'"

"She came up with it herself," was the response, though she didn't look at him, instead absorbed in what was appearing in white letters on her screen; "She says she trusts you enough to give you it. Then she explained to me why she thought she could get away with it. Quite the clever girl you've got there, my dear."

Derek smiled. If not the smile he always wore when he spoke to Penelope, it was a warmer, more personal one; a smile that meant he felt accepted somewhere he previously hadn't been.

In the interrogation room, Spencer had settled Alaric down in the chair, and taken up his own place beside Hotchner. It was for a reason – the elder agent thought she would be more willing to speak with Reid there, and he was not in the mood to run a risk that she would remain silent.

The girl's eyes flicked between the genius and Aaron. She forced herself to relax, though it was a difficult task, and one that was only half-accomplished.

"We want to talk to you about what you saw down when you fell down that hole today," Hotchner told her, opening the notepad in front of him; "It's very important."

"I don't want to," was her response.

"It'll help us find your parents," Spencer assured her; "By telling us, we-"

She interrupted him; "You would know their methods better and be better able to profile what they're like. I know why you want to know, Uncle Spencer. I just don't want to think about it."

The nickname caused a glance from Hotchner and a tensing of the muscles from Spencer. They said nothing, though, intent on not drawing her from the interrogation.

Reid leaned forward; "If you tell us now, we have more time to find your brothers and potentially, save a girl's life. Isn't that what you want?"

She gave a sullen nod.

"Then help us, Alaric. Tell us what you know, and we'll let you go back to what you were doing."

There was a pause. Then, with a sigh, Alaric said; "What do you want to know?"


	15. Roaming Home

As it turned out, Alaric could give them little in the way of information. When she had fallen down the hole, some dust had been disturbed and cobwebs had taken her immediate notice, so she caught only glimpses. Through her periphery, she said she had seen the chains and the torture equipment; something akin to a description in one of her books, she claimed, and speculated with Reid that they had once been locked in some academic's cupboard.

Hotchner let her go without further questions. It was with Reid's hand in her own that Alaric hurried across the bullpen, towards Derek, who was busying himself with trivial paperwork.

"Hey," he greeted as soon as he saw them; "How did it go?"

Alaric gave him her trademark furrowed brow; "Is that a trick question?"

Both laughed. It was strange, that a girl they had only known for three days had taken such a place in their hearts, especially once her previous suspect status was factored in, but Alaric was a different breed from the rest. She, had a grip on morality, love and affection, rather like Derek, and the social ineptness of their beloved Spencer Reid.

"Well, it's over with now. And you've come out no worse for wear." He observed. It received but a roll of the eyes and a strange noise in the affirmative, before Alaric took up one of the empty desk chairs. She had grown more confident in the bullpen. Without much trouble, she recalled the layout; a dozen desks, each with strange mementos on them, which she had memorised in case she ever needed to describe the place.

"It's getting late," Spencer noticed when he caught sight of his watch; "Someone should drive Alaric to wherever she's staying."

She pulled a face; "I hate that place. The person there's horrible. She acts more like a dictator than a carer."

Both men looked up. Alaric wore the face that told them she wasn't lying; she felt such animosity towards the woman that she wore a hard frown, her furrowed brow becoming tighter and angrier. The fluorescent lights above made her white skin even paler, but there was no washing the fire in her eyes.

"Is that how you really feel, sweet pea?" Derek asked.

"Of course it is. Why else would I say it?"

"Well, from previous experiences-"

Alaric gave Spencer a sharp look, and he fell silent. It wasn't for the fact he was frightened of her; it was because he was eager for her to continue, so that he might help in any way he could.

Derek spoke again; "Well, then – I guess we're going to have to do something about that. Where is it you're staying?"

"I have no idea. My social worker didn't tell me the address. All I know is it's a big house on a boring street, and there's a man next door who asks me to come over all the time."

At her description, the agents started, calling first Hotchner and then the child protective services. It was an oversight on their part; the woman had apparently been ineligible to take in foster children, but without a place for her in the nearest care homes, and without another family ready to take someone on short notice, she had been the name to come up. It was an illegal oversight, Derek reminded them, and vowed if they put a child in danger again – case or no case – he would file the lawsuit himself.

That left Alaric without a place to stay that night, however.

She herself was unperturbed by it. Offering to make herself a small bed on the waiting room's sofa, she even told them that she would leave the case files alone; that was, she wouldn't do anything to check the status of her brothers. But her offers were shot down. In fact, Spencer told her they were never really options, and Hotchner gave a sigh.

"We'll have to set her up in a hotel for the night," he decided; "Something local and safe. Does anyone know a place?"

Rossi, who had appeared during the conversation, spoke for the first time; "Is there room in the budget for that? Local hotels are expensive."

"There'll have to be."

It was then that Derek spoke, with his usual confidence and resolve, but not without a note of thoughtful hesitation; "I could always take her for the night."

All four conversers looked up. So shocked were they that there were no words, just a silent cue for Derek to continue.

"I live close, we don't have to use the budget, and we're assured that she's in safe hands," he explained; "It seems logical, doesn't it?"

Spencer, who had taken a special interest in decisions concerning Alaric, supported him; "It's the most pragmatic solution. We'd still need someone to supervise her in a hotel, and we couldn't be sure about the staff until we'd run full background checks on them."

Their staunch sceptic was Rossi, who offered up other solutions – less of an attempt to keep within the legal limitations of their job, but more to have a wider scope of their options. Soon enough, though, even he was swayed.

"Fine," Hotchner said, giving to him a phone separate from his other two; "Take this. It's programmed with all the relevant contacts; child protection services, child mental health units, a crisis team, Samaritans. There are a lot of agencies that are going to need to be involved with this girl, and tonight, they're you're problem too. Do you understand this, Morgan?"

With a firm nod of the head, Derek confirmed he did.

"Also, it's being tracked. Wherever this phone goes, it's expected the Alaric won't be far. Is that clear?"

Again, he nodded.

"Good," Hotchner gave an inscrutable look, one that always made him wonder if the man was judging him or inspecting him; "I hope you know what you're getting into, Morgan."

"It's just one night. How bad can it be?" was his reply. Met by a nod, he watched as both Rossi and Hotchner left the agency, most likely to look over the case files when they returned home.

Alaric was by his side quickly. With her little hand, she clutched Derek's and looked up at him, a mixture of shock and bewilderment in her eyes.

"Can we go home now?" she asked.

He blinked, and then replied; "Of course, baby girl. Reid, you want a ride?"

The genius looked as though he were torn with himself for a moment, conflict in his eyes, but soon said; "Sure."

And so, as a trio, they went to the car. Spencer was sure to buckle Alaric in; she protested, of course, but he reeled off facts and figures at her to the point where she acquiesced, sitting back in the chair as the car began its journey.

And none of them could sense the dark clouds looming on the horizon.


	16. Sleepy Head

Derek's home was quaint; not in a traditional way, but in the sense that it was much smaller than Alaric's.

He had black leather sofas that faced a big screen television, itself balanced on a glass stand with plastic black supports. The walls were burgundy, the carpet white, and in an a-joining room she could see a dining room table, dusty from disuse. Through the open door to the kitchen, she could make out black cupboards and drawers to match the countertops, where there were white chopping boards and an American-style white fridge in a small alcove, and on the walls there sat funny pictures with sayings like 'Kiss the Cook' or 'Bless This Mess.'

"Make yourself at home," Derek told her, throwing his jacket on the sofa as he plucked his landline from the cradle, which was situated on his glass coffee table; "I've just got to make a call."

She nodded and went exploring.

Faintly, Alaric caught snippets of Derek's conversation. He was talking to his mother – a woman he laughed a lot with, apparently – and was so absorbed in whatever was being said that he wasn't keeping an eye on her. With that in mind, Alaric found the stairs in the dining room and hurried up them, searching for something she would find interesting. She noticed too that a small corner had been sectioned off and filled with dog toys, which churned her stomach.

Upstairs, there were several rooms. A bathroom, following a modern trend of black décor, which had tiles cold to the touch and a large, high-powered shower in the corner of the room; a master bedroom, which was fitted crimson carpet and black walls in a similar colour scheme to the living room, with a four poster king-sized bed the centrepiece, bedside tables of black mock-wood, and a large chest of drawers situated directly under a wall-mounted plasma TV; a guest room, this one barer, and with but a double bed, one bedside table, a wardrobe, and a smaller television on a stand in the corner, still with the same colour; and finally, a study/computer room.

This was unlike the rest of the rooms in the fact that it followed a more traditional style. The desk was polished mahogany and the shelves around it were wood, sleek perhaps, but still wood. The walls were brown and the carpet was fluffy white. The computer was on the desk, but surrounding it were books on two different subjects; profiling and psychology.

"Alaric!" she looked to see Morgan hurrying towards her, having caught her peering at his computer screen. No harm done; his screensaver was that of a model, the name of which Alaric had either forgotten or never known, and she favoured the latter explanation. "You shouldn't be in here, sweet pea."

"These are interesting," she said as she picked up one of the books.

"Profiling's an interesting job," he replied.

"It's odd how our behaviour can give away our darkest secrets," her words were ruminant, as though she were trying to decipher the subconscious' strange workings; "You would think, for survival, it'd work to keep us as safe as possible, not to out us as murderers."

Derek sat on his desk. He smiled at her, a warm, bright smile, one that said he was admiring her knowledge, and spoke with confidence; "Perhaps. Or, perhaps it's more something that works for the bigger picture."

She thought for a moment; "That makes sense. If we couldn't determine who's a murderer, our numbers would be severely reduced." Then, almost as an afterthought, she added; "Then again, at our current breeding rates, that wouldn't be a bad thing."

"Don't say that. Murder is never justified."

"Isn't it?" she asked; "What about Revolutions? The Hiroshima bombing? Civil Wars?"

"Now, you see, those are different," Derek responded, as though he had been asked the question before and had formed his argument over a period of time; "If it follows the Just War theory-"

"Thomas Aquinas?"

"Yes. If it follows the Just War theory, we can minimise the damage to all civilians involved, and we can fight fairly. Murder isn't the same. They involve sick people who prey on innocent bystanders – sometimes, people they've never even met – and kill them for no reason, other than their own satisfaction. It's an illness that can be treated."

Alaric furrowed her brow; "Does that mean we should imprison all the sick?"

"No, Ally, only those that are a danger to others. Prison is about rehabilitation; it heals them, and gives them rightful punishment for their crimes."

The nickname didn't escape her notice. She liked it well enough not to comment.

"Why do we keep life sentences, then, if we think rehabilitation works?"

"Because some people can't be saved in a lifetime."

"Why not just execute them?"

"We don't want to stoop to their level, do we?"

She fell silent. She had no argument against that, nor did she have any want to delve further into something that Derek was obviously so clued up about, so she simply turned back to the computer and raised an eyebrow.

"Who's that?" she asked, pointing at the screensaver.

The agent ushered her out of the room; "Tyra Banks, and you shouldn't be looking at that."

Downstairs, she noticed that a door to a back garden had been opened in the kitchen, and soon a dog was rushing up to her. So surprised was she that she leapt back. Her trembling was visible as Clooney stretched his long snout upwards to her face, sniffing at the stranger, before he licked her clenched fists.

"Alaric? What's wrong?" Derek asked behind her. She said nothing. Her eyes were so transfixed on Clooney that for a moment, he wondered if she had even heard him.

Derek moved forward and got between the pair. Picking Alaric up – an easy feat, for she was lighter than an eleven year old should have been and he was stronger than the average man – he lifted her above Clooney's snout and towards the dining room, where he put her, stiff as a board, on one of the chairs.

Beside her, he crouched.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

She shook her head; "I…don't like…"

"Are you afraid of dogs?"

There was a red tinge to her cheeks when she nodded, and then her eyes were drawn to curious Clooney, sniffing at the chair legs.

"There's nothing to be scared of," Derek took her hand, coaxing it down to his fur; "He's a good boy. Won't even jump up at you. See? He's just curious."

Though some of the tension bled for her shoulders, Alaric still favoured to keep her distance that night. After dinner – a pizza from Morgan's favourite takeaway, coupled with ice cream and cake – the agent found an old shirt he never wore and gave it to her as a replacement nightie, which all but drowned her.

She rubbed her eyes when they were sitting on the sofa, Clooney at their feet; "'M tired."

"Time for bed." He said, standing up; "Come on."

An eye peeked out from under her forearm. With a laugh, Derek picked her up, taking her to the guest bedroom where she was tucked in and the curtains drawn.

"Get some sleep, okay? Bright and early tomorrow."

She murmured in her half-asleep state; "Doesn't it seem weird that none of your team has got why my parents are doing this?"

Derek turned. His interest piqued, he tried to act nonchalant as he 'checked' her covers, asking what she meant.

"Blonde girls. Straight A students. Spotless records. Brains partially removed. Don't you see?" she yawned, her mouth a gaping black hole as she turned over and pulled her blanket closer to her cheek; "They're trying to find my brothers new brains."

And as Alaric fell into the deep abyss of sleep, Derek dropped the pillow he was holding, with a realisation dawning on him like the bleak light of a new winter's day.


	17. Compromised

"What do you mean new brains?"

Derek stood at the head of the conference table, facing the team with his usual confidence. Barely a night had passed; as it was, they had been called in during the early hours of the morning, told only cryptic snippets of what Morgan had discovered so that no one dragged their heels.

"Alaric believes-"

"Alaric isn't a profiler," Rossi reminded him; "and she's going to be emotionally compromised to this case. Can we really put any weight on what she believes?"

Spencer, who was sipping at a large Starbucks coffee cup, paused mid-sip to look at Rossi. His eyes spoke volumes; he was almost offended that Alaric's input was dismissed so easily, and when he spoke it was to defend her.

"She's managed to keep quite an impartial view when it comes to her parents. If we're talking methods and objectives, she isn't compromised, either emotionally or mentally."

"And how can you be sure of that, Spencer?" Prentiss asked. The weak sunlight filtered through the blinds and fell over her in a way that brought out her hair's glossy shine, but the downside was that the dark crescent moons underneath each eye were more visible.

"Her input so far has been purely speculative. This is the first time she's said anything with absolute certainty."

"Let's not forget her nicknames for you two," Rossi reminded them, and both men turned their heads toward him, two pairs of eyes blazing with challenge; "Perhaps she's not emotionally compromised, but you are."

Morgan leaned forward on his hands, balancing himself on the sleek black wood to give his mind something to busy itself with. "Are you questioning my judgement?"

"I'm questioning how this young girl could have walked into the building five days ago and manipulated the emotions of two of our finest agents!"

"Rossi, I think Morgan and Reid are experienced enough to know the warning signs of manipulation," Hotchner, as always, diffused the situation as best he could, with his authorative tone bringing them all back from the brink; "Morgan, what did she say?"

He recounted the scene as best he could. The warmth of the room, a glass he planned to fill with water once Alaric had fallen asleep; he even remembered how small she looked in the bed, which was just a scrawny double.

"She told me she found it weird that we didn't already know what was going on," he said; "That it was obvious what her parents were doing. She recited the victims, and this morning over breakfast she told me she assumed they were female because she's a girl."

"How does that have any relevance to the investigation?" Emily asked.

Spencer had followed Alaric's line of thought almost perfectly, and cursed himself for not thinking of it first; "Because she's their only child with genius level intellect. It must have led them to link females with superior intelligence."

"Well, they wouldn't be wrong," JJ said as she looked down at her case file. Her words earned her collective stares from her male teammates, but Emily made a noise in the affirmative.

Suddenly, the conference room door opened, and in walked Alaric with a little box in her arms.

Derek was the first to speak, Spencer having risen to meet her at the door; "Hey, sweet pea, you can't be in here – we're discussing the case."

"Someone sent me this box," she announced to the room; "This box. It's for me. Which means, it's for you."

As she pushed her burden on the conference table, Alaric turned to Reid and reached up for his hand. She was subdued, to the point where her usual questions weren't uttered and her eyes weren't bright.

Hotchner raised his eyebrow. With the others watching he leaned over, prying the box open, and as he looked down into it his eyes widened just a bit.

"Morgan." He said.

The agent went to him. He peered beside him into the box. With a shake of the head, he looked up at Alaric.

"Did you look inside this box?" he asked.

She shook her head. Nudging herself closer to Spencer, she gave Morgan her perfectly innocent look, one that consisted of both bewilderment and unease, and he knew she was telling the truth.

Inside the box, there were pictures. The girl – blonde, mouth tapped and her feet chained – was new, and Rossi hurried off to Garcia with one of her pictures in the hope that she could find her. There was a video camera there, too, with a note attached to it; 'PLAY ME, ALARIC.'

"Give me that," Derek said, taking the camera; "I'm going to look at this."

"I'm coming with you," Spencer added. As they moved to hurry out of the door, they realised that Alaric was on their heels.

"You're not leaving me," she told them; "I want to see it, too."

"This isn't a movie, Alaric. What's on this camera is too graphic for you, and I'm not exposing you to it."

"It's addressed to me," she reasoned; "and they're my parents. What if it has my brothers on it? I want to see."

Spencer wanted to give her what she wanted, but his better judgement told him not to. He defended Derek's decision as best he could on that merit.

"We need professional eyes to look at this. If we-"

Alaric shook her head. By the way her body tensed and her eyes blazed with indignation, Spencer guessed she was unconvinced by his excuse of 'professionalism.'

"I was the one who came to you, I was the one who figured out what my parents were doing, and I'm the one who's collected a majority of the evidence. Were it not for me, you'd be floundering around trying to find fingerprints."

"Alaric-"

"At least in this one case, I'm in a better position than you are with the argument of 'professionalism.' So let me see that video, if only to know my brothers are safe."

Derek and Spencer glanced at each other. Without any argument against her, and not wanting to raise her ire, Morgan said; "Fine. Come on, then. But as soon as anything gets graphic, you're leaving."

She gave him a nod of understanding. Reaching up to take Spencer's hand, for only his was free with Derek holding the box, they went onwards to the evidence room – where Alaric felt her heart both uplifted and crushed.


	18. Little Lost Girl

So it was that Alaric discovered her brothers were alive and well, if disturbed by their parents' misdeeds. The film showed their pursed, perturbed faces in a corner of some dusty shed, a chained girl struggling at their feet, and off screen her parents' voices could be heard barking orders, some of which were difficult to listen to.

When the video ended – thankfully, without bloodshed – Derek and Spencer hurried off to another meeting with the team, and left Alaric in Garcia's stead. The two spoke sparingly, for the girl was trying to wrap her head around what was happening to her brothers, what they were being forced into, and Penelope had no wish to disturb her.

Finally, after what seemed like an age, Alaric spoke; "The girl's been reported missing, hasn't she?"

"She was this morning," Garcia nodded, rolling on the chair to her computer screen as if to confirm it; "Heidi Monroe. Straight A student with no criminal record, just like the others. History repeats itself."

"Patterns emerge," Alaric said; "Like Uncle Spencer told me. It helps, doesn't it? That murderers are so predictable?"

"They're not always. Sometimes, it takes us a while to figure out what's going on. We have to go on evidence, and there wasn't a lot that incriminated your parents until you came along."

She frowned; "Lucky them."

Another silence descended on the room. In it, Alaric busied herself within her mind, searching for clues she may have missed, but the truth of the matter was that the team now had a good lot of leads. Jennifer Butterball had been found and called in for questioning; the child's and teacher's homes were being searched; and they knew the girls were being kept in a shed, most likely somewhere secluded, though they were as yet uncertain if the victims were being transported to and from different locations. Alaric's input, while appreciated, was quickly becoming unnecessary.

It was only Morgan, Reid and, to a lesser extent, Garcia, who believed she provided valuable insights.

Soon enough, Penelope realised that Alaric had been quiet for some time, and decided that conversation was the best thing to keep her distracted. It was one thing for a genius to ruminate over psychology; it was another thing entirely for a young girl to consider what made her parents killers.

"Have you had lunch?" she asked.

Alaric shook her head; "No."

"Let me just send a text to one of my tech friends downstairs," Penelope took out a phone from her handbag; a strange, personal variation of her work phone, with rhinestones arranged in a heart-shape on the back and several colourful 'gems' glued to the corners, the keyboard itself made sparkly with a protective case. "He owes me a favour. I'll make him get us something from that little café down the road."

Alaric would have protested, had she not been distracted by the lightning quick speed at which Garcia text. Her fingers were so fast she could barely see them – the gift of a technical analyst, she assumed, or someone whose main interest was computers.

By the time she had finished, Alaric was still enthralled by her. She noticed but said nothing. Stares at the speed of her texting were common, and she assumed the girl was smart enough to know that she had long ago learnt to touch type.

"Muffins and sandwiches on the way," she announced, turning back to her screen; "And hot chocolates, too."

"When will Uncle Derek be back?"

"Hard to say. He might be sent to question Miss Butterball after the brief."

"Can't he come check on me?"

"Case comes first," Garcia said, though with a note of sympathy in her voice, tapping something out on her keyboard with a fluffy pink pen slotted between her fingers; "and we need to work fast. We've no idea how long your parents will keep their victims now, since they know you're here."

"A stressor?"

"Could very well be."

Silence prevailed.

As it turned out, both Derek and Reid were busy for the next six hours, and so Alaric was left in Garcia's care for the entirety of the afternoon. They passed the time by eating, chatting, or simply enjoying the quiet that came with thought, on the rare occasions Penelope felt she was safe from being called on. There were moments when the girl thought Derek would come through the door and shed some light on the situation, but those were far and few between, as well as never right.

When the work day came to an end, Derek came to find her. Alaric had grown bored and wandered off when Garcia was absorbed in her work, and so she was roaming the halls of the agency, being followed by a concerned agent Morgan didn't know the name of, all the while searching for something that could entertain her.

"Hey, what you doing out here?" he asked, a smile on his face.

"No one came to check on me," she replied, rather sullen, before she perked up; "Did you find out where my brothers are?"

"No. But we're making good progress with your teacher. She might know some useful information – might even have been aware of what was going on – so we're keeping her in."

"If she knows what they were doing, she's no teacher of mine. More a consultant," Alaric replied.

Derek could only laugh. Then, his mouth drew into a hard frown, and when he spoke, it was with careful thought; "You know, we really need someone to be taking care of you."

Her eyebrows rose.

"Child protection. Social workers. Care homes. Haven't you checked everything out?" she asked.

"We did. But just because someone makes one mistake doesn't mean they'll make it again. We've made it very clear that they're to take extra care from now on, and not overlook things. Otherwise it's their job."

"I don't want to be put in another home. I want to be here, looking for my brothers."

Another crinkle of the eyebrow, a tug at the corner of his mouth, and Derek said; "Alaric, this is getting too far into the investigation now for us to keep you on. I know how much you want to help your brothers, but I assure you-"

Alaric cut him off with a snort. Her eyes blazed fury, but she said nothing, not for a good while. The agent behind her moved off.

"If it weren't for me, you wouldn't even have an investigation."

"Be that as it may, you're not a professional, and we can't have you on this. You're too young."

"Spencer was-"

"Older than you when he joined this team. He was also qualified."

There was challenge in her eyes; "Then I'll find them myself."

"That would be a dangerous situation to get yourself in," Derek warned; "It's best if you just do as I ask now and let us handle it. Your brothers will be safe."

Alaric gave him a look that could only be described as slow-burning fire. She uncrossed her arms, looked down, and back up. Then, with warning and barely supressed anger in her voice, she said;

"Do you have siblings?"

"Sisters."

"Then you know why I can't just trust 'someone else' will find them and keep them safe like I will. I'm asking you as a _friend_, Derek-" she looked him in the eyes; "Let me help you."

He sighed; "I can't, Alaric. The risk's too great."

Darkness descended on her face. Without warning she charged forward, shoving him to one side, and before he had gathered his bearings she was racing off down the hall. She called behind her.

"If you won't let me help, I'll just have to investigate myself!"

He took off after her as quickly as his legs would carry him, but such was her advantage and distance on him that she could slip away without too much trouble. After losing her in the hall, Derek went down to the front entrance, where he caught a glimpse of her disappearing out of the doors and into the crowd beyond.

He followed.

Too late, he realised, she was gone. Alaric was small, and smart enough to secrete herself within the thickest patches of movement. Where there were throngs of people he knew she would be, but there were too many to count and he had no idea which one she would be in. He had no idea which way she had gone, either. For all he knew, she could have been right beside him, or to the left; the right; the front. She could have slipped past him without him realising, so caught up was he in how hopeless the search was that it would be easy to do so.

With a great, defeated sigh, Derek went back into the agency.

Telling Hotchner was something he dreaded. The leader wasn't pleased with him – he felt that the parents would be on the lookout for her, ready to snatch their daughter up the first opportunity they got, and if that happened there was no telling where they would go next. Such was their care for Alaric that he didn't believe they would harm her, but they were murderers and needed to pay for the lives lost because to their wicked ways.

The team reacted as he would expect. Prentiss and Rossi were concerned for the girl, but also for the state of their case. JJ showed greater consideration to what was going on in Alaric's mind, and began to list places she thought they would find her in. Garcia was shocked enough to check local surveillance footage and further, but the results of that would take a while to produce, if there were results at all.

Out of all of them – not including Derek himself – it was Spencer who seemed most upset by the news. In Alaric he had found a kindred spirit; a child, both gifted and cursed with his same ability, who asked questions when she was confused and took the initiative when she felt it right. Until recently she had felt a great weight in the care of her brothers, and showed worry in their well-being, much like he did his mother in the first years of her condition. But it was the social obliviousness he found most similarity. Unlike him, Alaric had never been exposed to bullies; but instead she was isolated from her peers and given no room to grow. Her experiences were limited to the point where she would be confused at the most basic of social convention; for instance, holding a door open for another person, who she claimed 'seemed perfectly capable of not getting hit in the face by a door.'

Alaric had been a girl that showed promise, and in a way that Spencer wasn't alone. There were few people with his ability. Fewer still that he met. To know that someone was beginning to cycle of what would be a life of ridicule, admiration, and never anything in between, had evoked within him a protectiveness that he found strange at first.

"We have to find her," he told Hotchner; "We have to make sure she's safe."

"I'll have a search party issued in the surrounding areas. If she's still around, they will find her. We need to focus on the case."

"Hotch, if there's even the slightest chance that Alaric's being watched-"

"Then she's already gone," the leader interrupted; "and we have to make sure her parents don't escape with her and her brothers."

Rossi appeared in the conference room, hands in his pockets and with a rehearsed relaxed demeanour; "Garcia can't find anything in the local surveillance. Wherever she is, she's not near us."

"She could already be gone." Hotchner mumbled to himself. Then, to the team members surrounding him; "Here's what's going to happen. Morgan, you and Reid are going to help the search in the surrounding area. Rossi, you and Prentiss are going to the crime scene and see what's been dug up. JJ and I will go and question the victim's parents."

Each man nodded. Prentiss and JJ were out of the room, but it was assumed they would have no conjecture to the plans; after all, they were used to them.

"If Alaric's already been taken, we may not have a lot of time to find her parents. Everyone, move out."


	19. Searching Souls

The search was fruitless.

Rain came in just an hour in and a storm began thundering over the horizon. Police in plastic coats explored the streets, finding little to even suggest Alaric had been through them, aside from a pen she'd been given by Reid that morning. Night was looming when they expanded the area by another mile, and he could imagine the people living on those streets hurrying out of their homes, gathering flashlights from disused cupboards and emergency kits, ready to find a little lost girl.

Spencer went with one group, and Derek with another, but neither were successful. It was as if Alaric had vanished without a trace. The pair's worst fears played on their minds as they searched each street, knocked at every house with a light on, and checked every single quiet back road she may have gone down in the hopes of evading them.

When Hotchner called him, Reid was as pragmatic as ever, knowing just what he would say and feeling no surprise when it was said.

"We've got to consider her kidnap, then. Does anyone have any pictures of Alaric?"

"Garcia could probably pull some up on the systems," he said; "Otherwise, we use the ones we took when she was a suspect."

The moment of silence that followed told Reid that Hotchner was thinking. Pauses were common, but when it extended, he prompted his team-leader, perhaps with a hope that if he restricted their speaking time he would have more chance to find Alaric."

"I'll see what Garcia can dig up. They appear on the news tonight, no exceptions."

Spencer checked his watch; "That's going to be difficult. It's already nine thirty."

"We'll work fast. Keep looking."

With that, the line went dead.

Back at the BAU, Aaron was facing his own problems; dealing with the mother of the victim. Heidi Monroe's mother was a woman of similar facial features, her hair the same shade of blonde and her eyes a sparkling blue, but subdued by fear and worry. Her name was Janice Monroe, who had already lost a son to war, and now had but two living child, including Heidi. She wept silently in front of JJ, and when he appeared at the office's door, Hotchner gave them both an apologetic nod.

"What's happening?" she asked, voice hoarse; "Is my daughter alright?"

He sat down beside JJ, who answered her for him; "We're doing all we can to help her."

Mrs Monroe let out a little choke of a cry, something teetering on audible and silent, and nodded. The situation was nightmare enough – she could barely handle the details.

"Do you know where Heidi's father is, Mrs Monroe?" Aaron asked.

"He was on a business trip when I got the call," she replied, still with a thick voice, on the verge of bursting into tears again; "He's on a plane back right now."

"Are you together?"

She shook her head; "Separated."

There was a small apology, and then they went onto questioning. Rounds of it brought them to understand that Heidi had been in contact with a family before she was kidnapped; a family that needed a babysitter for two young disabled boys, apparently with Downs Syndrome. The note and email address they gave was sent to Garcia, who they hoped would trace it back to a residence. Perhaps even where the girl was being held.

Jennifer Butterball wielded no answers. She was as oblivious to the parent's intentions as their daughter had been, though she was able to tell them that the boys depended greatly on their sister. On the few occasions she spoke with Greg and Alice – both of them being people who dealt only with the clever – Jennifer said she had heard them using derogatory language towards their sons, and they expected their daughter to get perfect scores on all tests.

"Explains the immaturity, to an extent," Rossi said to Prentiss when they were alone; "An escape from expectation."

"Can we not talk about escaping?" she asked; "I've heard just about enough of Alaric and 'escaping.'"

With a nod of appreciation, Rossi was silent.

Night brought with it a whole host of new troubles, not including the rain that seemed to flood the drainage systems. Groups of people had turned out to search for Alaric, but few had seen the picture of her that went out on the late night news, and fewer still had a plan prepared if they were to find her. Derek had warned the groups he passed that she was a tricky one. Still, he knew how her young face could sway them into believing otherwise; Alaric used people underestimating her to her advantage.

Spencer called him some time before eleven; "She's not here. We've lost her."

"Now, we don't know that. Could be that she's turned tail and gone back to the BAU."

"No, we would have gotten a call. She's gone."

There was a note of resignation in Spencer's voice, and from that Derek knew he had lost hope. Such was Alaric's way that she thought for no one else when her brothers were involved; he couldn't imagine what she would have said, had she known how her disappearance would affect them.

"What do you suggest, Reid?" he asked. His ears strained to hear over the water and constant shouts from other groups.

A slight pause was followed by; "Keep looking. If we don't find anything in the next hour, we call off the search and go back."

Derek agreed and turned the conversation off. He had an hour to find Alaric, and then he would have no choice but to go back to the BAU without her. The thought made his heart plummet.

Garcia was the one who told Hotchner that the email address was being operated from a public library, and so couldn't have been the place that Heidi was being held. However, it did give Rossi and Prentiss a new place to visit, as one more lead to be followed in a case full of leads. It was a twenty-four hour library – they were to go as soon as possible.

Somewhere, in the distance, Alaric found a quiet place to shroud herself; a twenty-four hour library, where there was a television in the corner with the local news playing. When she caught sight of her face, being a detestable picture taken in England on the rare occasions she was allowed to celebrate a test result, she secreted herself in the corner and began all she could to research what she was about to do. In between the high shelves and the thousands of books, a mean looking librarian somewhere near the front of the modern-looking place, Alaric made herself a vow.

Somehow, she was going to find her brothers. With or without Derek Morgan and Spencer Reid; she was going to bring them home.


	20. Sitting Up at Midnight

Out of the wide, half-wall-spanning window beside her, Alaric saw the moon's silver glow peer through the dark rainclouds and down on the street, watched as cars full of tired commuters drove along the roads overflowing with rainwater, until the cars themselves were more like metal canoes on a concrete river, and smiled.

So rare was it for her to find a moment of peace in those hectic times. Even at her table, with books piled around her and paper given by the mean-looking but remarkably accommodating librarian, she was somewhat relaxed. If her mind wandered over her brothers for even a moment, she knew, it would be a different story.

There had been days in her life when she wished her brothers were gone; when she would have preferred to be an only child, rather than the bodyguard of two 'younger' siblings. Harry and Lewis were two lights in her life, and yet they were also two stresses that oftentimes built up on her. Unlike her parents, she had never doubted their worth. What she doubted was the fairness that she had been lumped with them, forced to help them when it seemed everyone else had written them off, since she had to watch their never-ending childhood while hers was eaten by facts and statistics.

The door to the library flew open. Alaric had no reason to start, and so she peered down the aisles beside her to see the librarian and whoever had walked in.

When she caught sight of Rossi and Prentiss, Alaric hurried off to the nearest corner she could.

There were benches built into the wall, coloured in all sorts of different shades, where she found her asylum. Creeping along the high-backed seats, she could hear Rossi and Prentiss talking with the man, and then heard footsteps approaching where she was. Behind her there were computers, and so she made no moves in the hopes they wanted those instead – her absence was not to end until she wanted it to.

"This was the computer," Rossi determined, speaking perhaps more to his partner than he was the bewildered librarian; "It's the exact one Garcia pulled up. It's the one Greg Truman used to contact these girls."

"Will it have anything on it?"

The librarian answered; "No. Every member gets their own computer login, which can't keep hold of history and, I don't think, records emails."

"It sounds like a manipulator's paradise," Rossi told him, quite matter-of-fact, and Alaric couldn't help but agree. Such a policy would see wrongdoers flocking for miles; in fact, it seemed they already had.

There were more words exchanged, more explanations, but it was when the librarian walked away to get her parents' cards that Alaric paid close attention. The agents were talking to each other in hushed voices, perhaps because they felt they were not alone, which was strange considering the entire building was empty save for them, the librarian, and her.

"What do you think?" Rossi asked, clicking away at a computer mouse; "Another dead end?"

"Not necessarily." Prentiss replied. "Even if we can find out the nature of these emails, we can finally send out a report on what people should be avoiding. We had no idea how the UNSUBs' were collecting these girls; now we can warn people not accept babysitting jobs until we've caught them."

"They might change their method. Just abduct the girls from schools."

"They'll slip up, if they do. It'll be unplanned and unmediated, so something will go wrong."

Rossi was silent. Then; "If they've got Alaric, they might already be on their way out of the state."

Alaric's ears honed in to the conversation. So silent was the rest of the library that it wasn't difficult, and she felt a pleasant tingling as she listened – almost as though she were a voyeur outside a victim's home.

"Reid and Morgan aren't doing so well," Prentiss said; "She's compromised them. They don't think in terms of what the case needs, but what she wants. They've broken dozens of regulations and they don't seem to care."

"It's hard, when a child's involved in a case. I know what they're going through to an extent. When those kids back in the day lost their parents, and I couldn't find their killer, I felt responsible for them; since Alaric is after her own parents, they must want to protect her and take on the roles. Doesn't help she's smart, either. Reid identifies with her."

"And she's able to manipulate them into doing what she wants," Prentiss finished.

She imagined Rossi nodding his head, his silver mane still perfect, free from being worried by his hand as long ago he'd settled his nervous habits; "I don't think she means to. She doesn't have the malevolence."

"What do you mean?"

"I think she's picked the habit up. Her parents seem to manipulate people easily. Sociopaths are known to be charming, intelligent; their inability to feel makes them complete machines, in a way, Hell-Bent on satisfying themselves and only themselves. I doubt it will take much time for them to turn on each other, when they think we're closing in."

"That would explain why they were so angry with their sons' disabilities. If they felt they were entitled to children with genius-level intellect, Harry and Lewis may have been seen as a transgression against them."

"And the fact that their room is so appropriate for them; curtains drawn, too, to keep them hidden away from society. Alaric must have found the DVDS when she could. No way her parents would care for the boys."

Alaric felt her heart constricting. The term 'sociopath' had cropped up in her readings from time to time, but so absorbed had she been in her brothers' care that she hadn't put two and two together. Her parents were not just negligent of the boys – they felt nothing for them. The times when they tended to them were designed to put their own images in a good light, and nothing more. Why had she been so foolish as to think they felt at least a fragment of love?

"Found it," the librarian's voice sliced through her thoughts; "Took me a while, but here it is. Greg Truman's library card."

Rossi said thank you, and the librarian was gone again. He walked away without much complaint; the man worked there for peace and quiet, not to be disturbed by someone else's murder case.

Alaric listened once more; "Right, now we can at least see what he's saved to his files."

"Better to do it here than at the BAU. Garcia's running herself ragged with all the surveillance."

Rossi's voice was heavy when he replied, but no less matter-of-fact; "We shouldn't be using so many of our resources to find Alaric. She was told no, and she reacted badly. She was childish about it and ran away. If she's been caught by her parents, that's what we need to focus on – we know they won't harm her, since they see her as genetically superior and their entitled child."

More quiet, filled only by the constant clicking of a mouse. Then;

"Morgan and Reid won't be happy until they know she's safe."

"We have no idea if she's safe or not. That's the reality of it."

It was a while before they left. Luck was on their side; they had found a template of the emails on Greg's library folders, and since they were so tame they knew that he'd been careless and assumed no one would view them as suspicious.

When they had shut the door behind them, Alaric sat upright, staring out at the moon that was slowly raking through the sky. It was then that a deep, unsettling feeling weighed down in her stomach. It was a feeling that told her she had hurt two men who she had only just met, but somehow felt great care for. It was a feeling that she was the mishap of two people too sick in the mind to even realise they were sick in the first place. It was a feeling that she would turn out like them, or a weakened version of them, since she already showed much of their traits in her manipulative ways.

It was a feeling that told her her endeavours to rescue her brothers would be met in vain.


	21. Footage

Morgan and Reid never went to sleep that night.

Too much had passed for them to sleep; with Alaric gone and the case developing, they seemed to be propelling themselves to a cataclysmic end.

Sitting across from each other in the conference room, they were silent. Two Styrofoam coffee cups were placed on the sleek table, and weak sunlight bled through the blinds, not enough to burn away the shadows that clung around the corners of the room. Spencer's face looked as though it were impressed with dark lines, when in reality sleep was what he needed. Derek's just looked utterly heartbroken.

When clouds encroached on the sky, they knew it was to be a dark day for the BAU.

"What're we going to do?" Morgan asked after hours of silence.

Spencer looked up. His eyes were hopeless, as if he had been debating whether or not they could expect to find Alaric alive, when he knew without doubt that her parents would do nothing to harm her.

"What can we do?" he asked, a sigh in his voice; "We go after her parents and hope she's there. That it's not too late for the victim, or her brothers."

A moment's pause; "You think they might hurt her brothers?"

"If they lose their usefulness, or they realise they won't be able to transplant the brains, yes."

"People do crazy things to get what they want," Derek mumbled, picking up his cup to take a sip; "I can't imagine her, gobbled up in all of that."

"No one wants to imagine a little girl in danger." Spencer agreed. His voice slid further into despair, losing itself in darkness, and he turned to the sunshine that was filtering across the room, streaking it with weak, golden light, as though it could cheer him up.

The search had ended when he thought it would; when no trace of Alaric had been uncovered, and people began to disperse. The rain had ended soon after they returned, making puddles in what now looked like ravines, but were truly roads. The agency seemed duller for her absence – the places where she sat were now empty, Reid's desk leg bare, and 'Poor Country My Fellow' was left two-thirds read without an owner.

But he wouldn't let his own emotions get in the way of progress. They had discovered templates of the emails sent to the girls, and so stood a chance of saving those that were not yet kidnapped. Though it would take some time to discover where the shed was, it seemed there was no immediate threat of death; not for now, anyway.

"This is so…" Derek searched for words. What words were there? He could say nothing that equated to the crushing emptiness inside him; he had lost someone he vowed to protect. Like all those children that slipped under the radar, all those who were voiceless and nameless and ended up dead before their time. He felt as though he had condemned Alaric to the same fate.

Spencer was silent. He had to be. If he said anything, he risked letting Derek know he was emotionally attached, more so than he already did.

"She's a little girl. She's a little girl, and everyone's just abandoning her."

The genius tried to use reason; "We have to focus on the bigger threat. We're here to stop a murder, not save a child."

"We're here to protect people," Derek counted; "That's our job. We take murderers off the street to make it safer. How can we go around telling people we're doing that, when we've let Alaric disappear?"

Spencer turned. The light was growing stronger, soon to be covered by rainclouds, and he saw how it fell across Derek's despondent face, highlighting the deep anger that hid in its recesses. Every line seemed to tell a story of defeat. If he mapped out the contours, he mused he could put together an epic tragedy.

"We can't be responsible for everyone. Technically, we weren't responsible for her. She was supposed to be under child protective services."

"And look how well that turned out, Reid."

He paused. His thoughts were pulsing at a mile a minute, but this time, they had free license; they were not his to control, and he felt when it came to Alaric, they would act on instinct most of the time.

"If she's not been picked up by her parents, she's probably found some dry place to wait until they find her. If she has, they won't harm her, because they see her as their 'entitled' child. Alaric is safe in either scenario."

"Safe? Safe? Being alone, out there, is safe?"

"She's smart," Spencer defended. Perhaps it was the worst thing for him to say, and instantly he saw the look of complete shock on Derek's face. For an intelligent man to tell him something so stupid – it was almost comical.

"Yeah, smart's going to help the fact that she's a walking target for kidnappers, thugs, paedophiles, rapists, murderers; the sort of people we deal with on a _daily basis._ She's safe because she can read books and understand equations. No, Reid – she's not prepared for this. No one can be prepared for the world when they're eleven years old. Hell, people aren't even ready for it when they're twenty, when they're expected to go out there and carve a living!"

Spencer sighed; "Then we hope her parents have her."

More silence descended in the air. Derek stared at him, a mixture of anger and despair in his eyes, and was about to say something when the door burst open;

"Alaric isn't with her parents." Hotchner said quite matter-of-factly. When the pair sprang to their feet, his eyes didn't change so much, but they did track each and every movement like a hawk would its prey.

"What?" Spencer asked; "How do you know?"

He took a deep breath, steadying himself with what he had just seen, and replied; "She's been seen on surveillance cameras."


	22. Fleeing Deal

The surveillance had shown images of Alaric, but not the sort that were expected.

She had appeared on them out of her own volition. With a smirk, Alaric's image had gestured to a narrow, winding alleyway that went out towards a main road, and down it she disappeared to reappear on another close camera.

This continued until they had caught sight of her hurrying into an old building. By the time she had done that, the moon was low; they could tell by the way the final camera was positioned, how the black and white images were harder to discern. It couldn't have been more than a few hours ago that she went in there.

"Where is that?" Derek asked, peering hard at the multiple screens around them. They all showed the same thing, and yet he believed if he could look harder, if he checked each one, they would reveal to him a little bit more of the surrounding areas, an inch further of the building and its huge, empty doorway, left without even its hinges.

Garcia told him, but she added; "There's no point in going there."

Just before Spencer could ask why, more images popped up on screen. They showed Alaric leaving the building that morning, by dawn, no more than a few minutes than when they were told she'd been sighted. Her face, pixelated though it was, looked puzzled and dejected, as if she had discovered something that displeased her – or, perhaps, hadn't discovered anything.

"Anything else?" he asked, desperate for just a hint to where she had gone.

"Nothing. She's either keeping an eye out for surveillance cameras, or she knows where they are. My bets are on the first one." Garcia tapped away at her keyboard, searching footage near and far in the hopes that they might chance across her; "It's almost like she's playing with us."

Hotchner, who stood further away in the corners of the room, arms folded and eyes hard, listened with intent. Soon enough, he revealed to them the relevance of her sightings.

"Her parents offered us a trade," he said, which made the others turn sharply, faces frozen in identical masks of shock; "A letter came today. What we can extract from it, we already know. We have their fingerprints on file, at least, but it doesn't say where they're hiding out – no return address, and the man who delivered it says he was paid cash in hand."

"What did it say, exactly?" Derek demanded. He was the first to shake off his shock, but his words were hard and ill-thought, as though there still remained some tremor of protectiveness within him.

"From what I can remember, they're offering us the victim in exchange for Alaric. Rossi and I are arguing whether or not we can set up the deal and then catch them both."

Garcia stood from her chair, perhaps to emphasise her point more; "Alaric's not here. And even if she was, do we really want to make deals with these people? They're murderers! We don't bargain with murderers."

"We play their game until we're assured that the victim is safe. If we play our cards right, we can finish this with minimal difficulty."

Spencer shook his head as though amazed. In his time at the BAU they had made similar deals – sometimes, it had even been at the risk of their lives – but it had never affected him in the way it was now. As he stared at his team leader across the darkened room, the lights shut off so as to better see the screens, he saw the reasoning behind his plan, heard the sense in it, but couldn't stand the thought of using Alaric as a bargaining chip.

"Well, it doesn't matter, does it?" Derek said, gripping one of the chair backs as he leaned against it, like a tiger sizing up an opponent; "Alaric's gone and she's trying her best to avoid us."

"She's a child. She's already shown herself once, and she'll slip up soon. We're getting some men on surveillance to check if she's being seen, where she's being seen, and how long ago. We need this girl. We need something to bargain with, or this entire investigation is chasing after ghosts."

He turned on his heel, face hard and resolute, and left without another word. So stanch was his appearance that neither man called after him; it would be a wasted breath, because Hotch would either ignore them or tell them that his decision was final.

"I guess we're looking for Alaric, then," Derek said.

"The minute she becomes useful again, she becomes important."

"That's the way of the world," Garcia told Reid, as though she had just one bit of wisdom she could pass on to a man who knew it all; "The minute anyone becomes useful, they're important. Then when they lose that usefulness, no one wants to know."

Spencer nodded. There was a dullness in his eyes, an empty hole that could swallow someone, and he seemed to sway for a moment on his feet, wondering how he could be so affected by evil when he spent his entire life looking at it.

"What should we do first?"

At that moment, JJ walked in, smiling to them both with that sorry look; something she had perfected over the years of speaking with bereaved parents and lovers, grandparents and the like.

"Hotch wants you to go out with the police and look for Alaric."

"We've already done that."

"A more thorough search, with an area centred on where she's been seen. Hopefully, the cameras started picking more things up; it'll be nice if something actually went our way during this case."

"What happens if we don't find her?" Garcia asked.

"Then we work on getting the victim another way. She shouldn't be too hard to get, though."

There was a moment in which all were silent. Derek looked at JJ as if he were to say something, and then hurried past her, with Spencer close at his heels.

JJ gave them both a look, before sighing; "Let's hope her parents don't find out she's not here."


	23. Apologies

Alaric had never thought her disappearance would spark a state-wide search. Had she been told she would be hiding from police cars, dogs and the odd search party, she would have endeavoured to find a safe-house.

As it was, the girl stayed invisible, choosing bushes and trees to hide herself in when she ventured through parks, and stopping to rest at inconspicuous places; libraries; bookshops; cafes and the like. She wanted not to be found until she'd at least an inkling as to where her brothers were.

At the few places she stopped where there was a television – her face was plastered all over local news, but very few seemed to recognise her, and those that did hesitated in case it wasn't really her – Alaric became aware that it was Derek and Spencer who seemed to have become the figureheads on it. Their broadcasts were repeated, their names and statuses given, while all the time it seemed they wore twin masks of worry, asking for civilian assistance wherever it was possible, asking for Alaric to be returned.

"What kind of a name is Alaric for a little girl?" she heard a man ask in one shop, his hands full of cheap children's books with a kempt bearded face; "Alarice, maybe."

The shopkeeper, who was a slender woman of about forty years, her eyes soft and motherly and her manner calm, nodded at him, ringing up his items with a practiced smile; "You're right. I've heard rumours about her. Could be we're dealing with a psychotic murderer."

As they shared a warm chuckle between them, Alaric left the shop.

That day passed slowly, and she made little progress. Police were crawling about the main roads, while the back roads were full of concerned passers-by, do-gooders on the prowl for her. It seemed wherever she went, there was another person chatting to their friend about her, or about the mysterious case swirling around her person, or the string of missing girls that it was theorised she was connected to.

By the time the sun was setting, Alaric grew bolder. She was hiding out in a bush, waiting for an opportune moment to drop down and hurry across the park, when a passing policeman had caught her notice. Instantly she lowered herself; her ears were sharp, her eyes sharper, and she listened as he spoke down a phone, apparently to a friend on the same case.

"No, nothing here," he said, glancing around the mowed grass and climbing frames, the children that raced around trimmed hedges and pruned trees; "Apparently been seen a few times today, but not in the last couple of hours."

He paused.

"Yeah, I heard that too. Agent Morgan and Agent Reid. Nearly heading the investigation, as far as I can tell."

His words brought to Alaric a certain note of joy. Unlike with her parents, she had grown close to the agents; their care for her and apparent desire to protect made her feel important, whereas before she was dehumanised as a walking brain. As she continued listening, Alaric went to war with herself – returning to them seemed to her an admission of defeat, and she would be no closer to rescuing her brothers.

"Well, if you hear anything, give me a call," the policeman chuckled down the phone, with her apparently having missed the joke; "I don't want to have to keep going round this park. There's nothing here except parents and their kids."

When he moved away to the other side of the park, Alaric escaped.

It was two days before she made her decision to return. By that time, the police searches had become frantic, the people having lost interest and returned to their mundane lives. There were rumours swirling that she had been killed; these were all dismissed by reports from Morgan and Reid, both of which implored local residents to keep at their searches, as it was helping the FBI at least determine the areas where they were not needed.

Tired, hungry, furious at herself and lost, Alaric found her way back to the BAU, her head hung in shame and her feet tapping out a rhythm on the concrete. As she watched reporters on their phones – too busy, she noted, to realise she was standing right before them – Alaric was given the incentive to hurry inside, as she wanted to meet Morgan and Reid without first being captured by cameras and asked infuriating questions,

The layout was familiar to her by then. The stairs were easily found, and the bullpen was like her second home. She crossed through it when she discovered neither man was there; so determined was she that she hurried straight past Rossi, who looked down at her with quirked eyebrows and retrieved his phone from his pocket.

Dialling Morgan, he spoke as soon as he heard the 'hello'; "You're not going to believe this."

In the next hour, both Morgan and Reid had returned to the BAU.

By this time, Alaric had been accosted by Rossi, and brought to one of the bullpen's desks where she was given food and water. There she sat, nervous and dirty, looking as though she had been dragged through miles of dirt; there were few comforts on the street, as she had discovered and stored away in her mind.

When the two men entered, there was silence.

Both of them stared at her with surprised, soft eyes. Alaric looked up, meeting them with her gaze, and without thought, hurried over to Derek, burying her face in his stomach and muttering something as he stroked her hair.

"What was that?" he asked gently.

"I need you to help me," she admitted, voice louder; "I can't find them by myself."

Spencer, who was standing at his side, knelt down to look at her eyes – bloodshot, he deduced she hadn't slept in a while, and by the way her fingers trembled when he took them in hand, she needed some sort of nutrient-rich food.

"I'm sorry," she told them both. It was the first genuine apology they had heard from her.

"It's alright," Spencer assured.

"Don't do it again, Alaric. This case is dangerous enough for you; what would we have done if your parents had seen you leave?" Derek asked, but carried on without her answer; "I'm just glad you're safe."

And in the back of the mind, a fleeting thought skittered; that soon he would have to use her as an investigation tool.


	24. Time

The nights grew longer, and the days short.

Grim times had fallen on Quantico; so much so that Alaric herself was subdued, left without task but to sit beside Garcia, silent if not for the occasional query of what would happen next. The analyst took great pains to be sure she wouldn't escape again, which often included a locked door, a menagerie of books and one iPad, having had games and films downloaded on it so that she might be entertained.

The few times she played with them, Alaric had no heart in it.

Contact with her parents was sparse. Hotchner received letters, of course, which detailed to him the finer parts of their crimes, and he with the team deduced they were far prouder of them than first thought – proud enough, it seemed, to boast about them. Their vivid descriptions were horrors best left unread. Indeed, it fell to the hardest agents to go through them, the most seasoned of the lot, who afterwards would go to various counsellors with worn, terrified eyes.

"Hey, sweet pea."

Alaric looked up to see Derek opening the door to her 'sanctuary.' His manner had changed, subdued somewhat, with his eyes having lost their vibrancy and his smile less bright, and the way he walked more controlled, as though there were some horror there that festered in his subconscious mind.

"You look tired." She settled on saying, for she had no idea how to bring it up any other way.

"Work takes a lot out of us," he explained, sitting beside her on the desk, pushing her propped-up feet along so that he had more room; "It's hard to keep up, but we're managing. How are you?"

"Great. Wonderful. Sitting in here is the best use of my time."

Derek gave a laugh. Sarcasm was something he had come to expect from her, and without it he thought she lost some of her charm.

"It keeps you safe, and that's all we care about."

"Why does your boss keep me around?" she asked, going back to her half-read book; "I'd have been sent away after that stunt, surely."

He had no idea how to reply to her. Until her parents gave them a way to make contact, rather than just sending them letters, Derek had no idea how the team would arrange for a 'meet' – the victim for their daughter. As it stood, no one wanted to tell Alaric about their plans, for fear she'd believe they were turning against her or, worse, thinking her life was less meaningful than that of Heidi's, who so far they had no reliable evidence was even still alive.

"Can we send you away after that?" he replied, keeping the tone as light as he could; "Anyone else you go to would lose you in five seconds. We need to make sure you're somewhere safe."

Her eyebrow rose. Somewhere deep within himself, Derek knew she didn't believe him. Had the truth been easier to tell her he would have gladly done it, but he risked her running away again, risked her being absent when the investigation – or, potentially, someone's life – depended on them knowing where she was.

If Alaric was thinking, she did so with a blank face. Even to Morgan it was unreadable. After a full minute of her being still, the girl relaxed back into her seat, not satisfied but not finding reason to pursue the subject.

"How did you find time to come check on me?" by this point, Garcia had stopped whatever she was doing, unused to being quiet herself, and turned so that she could watch Alaric speak with the agent. Their relationship was something of an oddity; the girl showed him trust, acceptance, but when the time came she felt as though Alaric would find no difficulty in cutting him loose, should her brothers need her to.

"I make time," was his answer, smile bright, arms folded across his chest; "How could I leave you in here all day without checking on you?"

"Miss Penelope's here to keep me safe," she noted. Garcia gave them both a smile, but still was silent.

"I know. Don't think I don't trust Garcia, Alaric – I do. But I like to keep you company too, you know."

"Where's Uncle Spencer?"

Her constant jumps in conversation were welcome; they felt like a verbal workout. Sometimes, Derek struggled to hop from subject to subject, struggled to know what to say and how to react, but oftentimes he was able to keep Alaric entertained, or at least keep up with her when it seemed she was off on a tangent.

"He's working on the case, building up a geographical profile. We need his big ol' brain out there."

"I miss him. He should come see me."

"Trust me, sweet pea, he wants to. Right now he can't make as much time as me. Wait until we've found more out; he'll be here to check on you then."

There was a moment of quiet. Then; "Why can't I go out there to see him?"

In truth, Spencer was mostly situated in the evidence room. He would crawl out every now and again for coffee, or some food to keep him alive, but other than that he seemed content to stay there and work. The evidence room itself was covered in facts and data; the victims' faces decorated the board, complete with areas they were found, possible locations, CCTV pictures of last sightings, and a whole load of things young Alaric would unfortunately understand. There were also the letters from her parents on the table, which were to be left there for easy access, the room being locked every night to ensure the utmost of security. Even cleaners weren't allowed to move them, let alone read them, and so the room was off-limits to all but the team involved.

Going inside would certainly make Alaric suspicious.

So, instead, Derek told her; "He's very busy. He'll make time for you soon enough. I promise."

The rest of the visit passed by in a light-hearted way, with Alaric asking no more questions. As soon as Morgan had left, however, she turned to Garcia with sharp eyes, and when she spoke she used a tone not meant to be trifled with.

"What're you all not telling me?" she asked; "Why is it that whenever something happens involving the case, I'm always the last to find out?"

"Because you're not allowed to know," Garcia used her most gentle of voices; "We're doing the best we can."

"Are you?" she replied. There was no disbelief in her tone, which surprised Garcia more than anything. She usually showed them incredulity; now, there was nothing but a need for reassurance, as though asking Penelope to reaffirm that she was doing the right thing by sitting on the backbench.

"I promise you we're doing everything we can."

She nodded. Settling down, Alaric opened her book again.

In the evidence room, Spencer spoke with Derek – words distracted for the fact that he was focused on his work, determined to catch Alaric's parents and bring the girl some peace.

"She misses you," Derek mentioned to him. It was met by a twitch of an eyebrow. "She asked why you don't see her. Why she can't come see you."

"Have you seen where we're standing?"

"Which is why I told her a half-truth; I said you're busy, and you'd make time for her when you can."

Spencer rolled his shoulders and said no more. The map was coming along, in the sense that he had realised there seemed to be no correlation as to where the bodies were dumped. Alaric's parents were clever. They used parks, which revealed their lack of concern for evidence the bodies may have contained, but these parks were far apart, some near the border and others far within.

"Hotch said we make a deal with these people. Her for the victim." Derek said after a while of silence.

"The plan's to get them out in the open and make out as though we're giving her back. We coax them to realise the victim first, and then we take them in."

"They're smart sociopaths. How are we going to convince them to give Heidi back first?"

"I'm not sure. Hotchner's going to tell us when he makes the plan."

Another moment of silence. Then, quietly;

"Someone's going to die."

Spencer turned to him with curious eyes.

"I've just got this feeling. Something heavy. It feels like someone on the other side's going to die."

"Alaric?"

"I don't know. But I'm not too keen to find out."


	25. Eased

The breakthrough came on a mundane, rainy day, in which the sky was swathed by clouds and the outside was made glistening with puddles, people having long abandoned the streets to return home.

Derek had been grappling with some paperwork that morning, with JJ at his elbow and Prentiss working at her desk, and Spencer was left to his own devices in the evidence room. Rossi and Hotchner were given the task of going through case files in the hope that something, anything would make itself known, while Alaric was once again in the stead of Garcia in her 'lair;' a place she had come to recognise as a cosy, toy-covered prison.

When Hotchner hurried through the bullpen with Rossi in tow, Derek had but a moment to look up and realise they were coming towards them.

"We've had some more contact," he said, eyes dark and inscrutable; "Meet in the conference room. Get Reid."

The genius was collected from his base of operations and, as a team, they went to the conference room, where they were confronted with the sight of both elder agents seated near the television screen, switched off so as not to draw their attention away. At their hands were dozens of letters; these were far less nuanced than the previous ones, incoherent and scribbled, as though a child had written them rather than two serial killers.

"What are these?" Derek asked when they were all settled down. His eyes had zeroed in on them much like a hawk would its prey, and his hands were knotted together in front of him.

"More letters," Rossi replied; "All came through today."

"Not from Alaric's parents," Spencer observed, grabbing one from the pile and giving it a quick look; "These are barely legible. I can't make out more than three words."

"More than we could. What are they?" Rossi asked.

"Dark, girl, and Alaric." He shook his head; "They're from her brothers, aren't they?"

Hotchner nodded. With a business-like tone he told them all he knew, which didn't amount to much. He theorised that the brothers had been writing to Alaric for a long time, perhaps with the belief that she was reading them, and that was how the parents were able to keep them on so tight a leash. Derek asked if it was possible the boys themselves had discovered a way to send letters – it was a possibility, he argued, as they may have been privy to their parents sending them, and might have then gone on to mimic the action.

"Impossible. They don't have the mental capacity." Rossi said after a while of following the thought. Because he hadn't been too sure of it himself, Morgan made no attempts to pursue it.

"Does this change the nature of the case?" Prentiss asked; "We've still got a victim out there, and there are still two murderers on the loose."

Rossi glanced at his neighbour, who nodded; "Go ahead."

The team were handed another letter. This one was written in the same style that they had come to expect. It detailed to them where they would take Heidi and, in essence, where they were to be given back their daughter, using words that made Derek's blood boil just by reading them.

'_Make sure she's in good enough health to last the next few days without food or water. This is our demand for her betrayal to us. We gave her life and intelligence; she owes to us loyalty and obedience.'_

"They plan to starve her," Spencer was the one to bring it up, voice incredulous and outraged, but face careful not to reveal his deeper emotions. He could imagine Alaric in a similar position to the victims – his eidetic memory would never forget it, and he cursed that fact, for it was one of the most heart breaking things he had ever seen.

"They won't get the chance. We're not actually giving her back to them; it's just something we're letting them believe until we have them in the open."

"Then we get Alaric and the twins?"

"The twins will probably have to undergo massive psychotherapy for what they've seen, especially with their condition," JJ pointed out. It was true; the boys were as yet too young to understand the finality that was the end of life, but the horror of witnessing it, of seeing someone killed by the two who were supposed to protect them from terror? There would be emotional scarring there that went further than their condition would let them delve.

In Garcia's office, Alaric had just finished her second book of the day, and placed it beside her with a heavy sigh. There was little left to do, save for mundane games and films so identical they made her want to cry. Her mind wandered, and she found herself thinking about her brothers; about Harry and Lewis, and how they were, how they were coping with what was no doubt a horrifying situation.

When the door opened to reveal Derek and Spencer, she released herself from that train of thought.

"Uncle Spencer!" she exclaimed, hugging his legs, to which she came just above due to her abnormally short height; "Did you finish looking at the evidence? Do you know where my brothers are now?"

If there was a moment she thought that the pair knew nothing, it was quickly dispelled by the fact that they glanced at each other, done in what they had hoped to be secrecy. Her smile dropped and she stepped back, looking up at them with guarded eyes.

"What?" she asked.

"Alaric, baby girl…we have to tell you something."

It was at this moment that Garcia turned. She knew what was to happen, that Alaric was a bargaining chip, but she felt it rude to leave when she had kept the girl in the dark for so long. There was also a morbid curiosity in her; she wanted to be witness to her reaction, good or bad.

And so, with a hint of trepidation about them, Spencer and Derek told Alaric what she didn't know – that Hotchner had hatched a grand plan, and she was to be at the centre of it. Once they were done she was silent for a full minute, swaying on feet suddenly too unsteady for her, and when she spoke, she did so with a quiver.

"Will it save my brothers?" she asked.

"We…hope so." Spencer replied.

There was a nod; "Then I'll do it. I have to do it. It's the only way I can get them back, isn't it?" she went to the door, looking at them with expectant eyes. "Come on. People don't like waiting."

Separate glances were spared between the adults. Each one was unsure what to do next.

"Come on," she urged; "I trust you."


	26. Rumbling

If there were any will in Alaric's mind to speak, it was sucked out as the car rumbled along darkened, rain-slicked roads, followed by an entourage the likes of which that quiet suburbia had never seen.

Outside, there was nothing but blackness. Or so it seemed to her. Her mood was one of such anxiety that she hardly noticed the lights shining out at her, either from windows or cars, or even a friendly little welcome sign for late-night visitors. Later, she would recall these and think about them, wondering how she could have been so blind. For the time being, she was content to think nothing lay beyond the SUV.

Derek and Spencer were in the front. The elder agent kept checking his rear view mirror to see her, slumped in her seat with the belt around her little frame, staring out of the window with a lost look on her face. The younger did his best to keep her comforted, through such methods as reaching back and holding her hand, or ruffling her hair when he thought she was unresponsive.

Alaric looked up at him. Her eyes, though dull, gave the certain warmth of feeling valued, even loved, and she squeezed back on his hand with either confirmation or affection. Whatever the case, Spencer smiled. His lips then tightened at the edges and he turned around, reciting the map to Derek and gesturing down a dark back road that led on to the woodland.

The quiet went on. They could hear nothing but the assault of rain on the windscreen, the whirr of windshield wipers coming up to wash it away, and the car's tires as it slowly went from tarmac to dusty roads, bordered by trees leaning in to each other as though in agony.

Soon enough, Derek felt the urge to speak; "Are you alright there, sweet pea?"

Alaric nodded. Her eyes stayed fixed on the window. Morgan mused she could see little in the darkness; her pupils never followed anything in particular, and never got that witchy glint which meant she had caught something interesting.

"You're brave for doing this, you know." No reaction. "Most people would've been too scared. Made excuses for why they couldn't, or shouldn't, help us with the case. You're not like them, are you, baby girl?"

That earned him a response, if only a little shrug. So focused was she on nothing that Spencer felt it was his turn to speak.

"Alaric, do you like music?" he asked, bringing out a small iPod that had been tucked neatly in his bag. It was a gift from a friend; he had little use for it, both owing to the fact that his tastes ran differently from what was available on iTunes and the few songs he did like there were 'oldies,' dating back to eighties glam rock and the sixties Swinging Britain.

"Sometimes," she muttered. Derek furrowed his brow, but said nothing.

"Here," switching it on, Spencer handed it over to her, hoping that she was familiar with the way it worked; "Listen to some of these. They might make you feel better."

Alaric used the device with ease.

Once they could hear the faint beat of music pumping through the headphones, Derek and Spencer spoke freely with each other, tones hushed so that they would not overpower the song.

"We getting close?" the elder asked.

"We should be. In approximately fifteen minutes, we should be there – not including anything that might be blocking the road, like fallen trees, wildlife, late-night hikers-"

"Fifteen minutes seems a long time," he interrupted, an amused smile on his face as Spencer fell silent; "Keeping her calm for that long…"

They glanced back at her. She was listening to the music still, but it was shown only in the occasional twitch of her eye or curve of her mouth, the window remaining her favourite pastime.

"She seems fairly calm." Spencer observed.

"She's nervous. And nerves can play havoc with people. I can't tell you how many times I've seen trained men do crazy stuff when nervous; you'd think they'd have more control, but they're only in control when they keep their anxiety in check."

"As humans, we can be enslaved by our emotions. Emotions are chemical changes in the brain, which can affect people in different ways-"

"But you always expect trained people to be better at controlling them."

Spencer nodded; "That's true."

The music stopped for a moment. They were silent as they waited for another beat to start, and as soon as it did, breathed twin sighs of relief.

"Do you still have your feeling?" the elder agent looked at him, eyebrow raised in silent confusion. "About someone dying. Do you still feel that's true?"

His nod was grave, his face solemn; "Someone's going to die. I can't tell who yet, but I don't think it's anyone on the team, which means there are only six people it could be."

"The victim, the parents, the twins, or…"

The look that passed between them was uneasy. Such was their desperation to protect Alaric that Spencer felt a sudden constriction of his heart, and he turned to face her, which made her look up. Her long fingers switched off the music and she raised an eyebrow.

He gave her a gentle smile; "You look anxious."

She nodded, and then admitted; "I am anxious."

"Everything will be alright. Derek and I will take care of you, no matter what happens."

"Will you take care of my brothers, too?" she asked. She gave him no room to reply; "I can look after myself. I know what to do and what not to do. They don't. They're too…too…too _dumb_ to know how to handle the situation. If they get angry or upset, you're not going to shoot them, are you?"

Spencer reached forward to stroke her hair, putting the wild strands back in place as he soothed her; "No, no, sweetheart – we'd never put them in danger."

"Do you promise?" she asked.

"We promise." The agents replied in unison.

The rest of the ride was dealt with in silence. Soon, though, Alaric looked up to the sight of lights in the distance; a decrepit old shack, barely big enough to equal to three of their car, and with a door hanging from rusted door hinges.

"We're here," Derek announced, voice grave. "Come on, Ally; time we get this over with."


	27. White Flags

To say that Alaric was nervous would have been an understatement. So long had she anticipated the case's conclusion, she had forgotten that it may have meant facing her parents again – seeing them, for the first time since she discovered their villainy.

Outside, Derek and Spencer were quick to give her cover. They used their coats to shield her head, having bought her another so that she would stay warm, though it felt as if the red fabric, so long that it reached her shins, was constricting her chest, stopping her from breathing.

"Alright, sweet pea?" Morgan fell to one knee, face so close that his eyes were boring into hers. She saw seriousness in them; a solemnity she had grown accustom to, and began to expect from all the agents during tense, critical moments of the case.

Not trusting her mouth to form coherent words, Alaric nodded.

"No matter what happens here," he went on; "Me and Spencer will be behind you every step of the way. Nothing is going to happen to you, alright? Not while we're around."

There was a moment of pause. Then Alaric nodded. She turned her gaze from his face to look at the shack, within which the lights were just powerful enough to reveal dark, mournful trees around it, twisted in agony, whistling with the ferocity of the wind. The shack itself groaned with each gust that battered against it; an old thing, she mused, as its door swung on rusted hinges and the dusty windows clattered, the glass having long since slipped its panes to become loose. The porch light was but a bare bulb swinging in the breeze, and it cast menacing shadows, making her shiver and clutch at Spencer's hand.

"We're here," the genius reminded her with a comforting squeeze. If she were younger and less intelligent, Alaric would have sworn the chill vanished for a moment.

Hotchner came forward as the entourage behind them stopped. He glanced first at Alaric and then his agents, nodding at them as though in a tacit code.

"Give her to me," he ordered, and the pair acquiesced after some moments.

"Derek…" her words were met with more gentle soothing. Morgan leaned forward and placed a kiss on the crown of her head, to which Hotchner raised another eyebrow, but said nothing.

"Everything's going to be okay. I promise."

A few more minutes of readjusting, with Hotchner at the front, a hand lain on Alaric's shoulder, and Spencer and Derek behind him, in the middle of Rossi and Prentiss, and the team was ready. The leader called out in a strong voice – Alaric thought it might have been the voice given to all strong men, capable of flattening entire villages if they had will enough to do so.

"Greg and Alice Truman," he shouted out; "This is Aaron Hotchner of the BAU. We have Alaric here. Show us the girl!"

There was a moment of stillness, in which even the wind stopped howling. The trees' constant rustling fell silent and, far off in the distance, Alaric swore she heard an owl hoot.

The door to the shack swung open. Everyone held their breath. Out of the relative darkness, a terrified, wide-eyed girl came shrieking out, her arms tied behind her back and with the barrel of a gun pressed to her temple.

Behind her, Alaric heard the un-holstering of four guns. She felt the protective presence of Derek and Spencer, as both of them had taken a step towards her.

"Let her go!" Hotchner barked. His hand tightened on Alaric's shoulder, causing her to squirm.

From the upper windows, there was a harsh cackle, and then the words; "You wouldn't shoot two innocent boys, would you?"

It was then that the darkness seemed to melt away. In reality, the captors moved forward. The light converged and flooded to reveal Heidi, with wide-eyed fear as before, and behind her, two boys with twin blonde hair, bright green eyes and perturbed faces, void of intelligence, malice, or intent.

"Harry! Lewis!" she cried out, fighting against Hotchner's hand; "Let her go! Let her go and come here!"

The pair looked at her in confusion. Noises apparently incoherent fell from their lips and Harry began to move back, shoving the gun further to the girl's temple. Alaric heard behind her the cocking of a gun.

"No! No! That's bad, Harry – that's very, very bad! You and Lewis have to come with me now! We have to go home; you want to go home, don't you?" Lewis stepped forward, understanding her to a point, as he was nodding with a furrowed brow; "That's good! So come on. Come on, we have to go. These people are trying to help us now."

Harry let the barrel slide from Heidi's temple for a moment. The girl began to struggle when she saw an opportunity. Making a strange, hard noise, stretched long in the accent of a moan, the boy tightened his grip and Lewis jerked back, as though following a command that was more mental than verbal.

Another gun cocked behind her. Alaric, seeing no other choice, took from her pocket a long, silver file she had been given by Garcia, and shut her eyes against her tears.

"I'm sorry, Mister Hotchner," she whispered, before the file was driven deep into his calf in one hard thrust.

He cried out in pain. So unexpected was the attack that he let go of Alaric to make sure it had truly happened, and the girl pelted forward towards her brothers. But Harry and Lewis had been startled by Hotch's outburst. With their own cry, Harry raised the gun towards the agents, aiming above Alaric's head as she was charging towards them, and Lewis brandished his own weapon from his pocket.

"Boys!" she cried; "Stop!"

Prentiss and Rossi took aim.

"No!" Derek and Spencer yelled above the growing wind, but both were drowned out by the sudden sound of gunfire. Rain fell once more and pelted their eyes, making all unclear, as they furiously blinked them away and tried to focus on what was going on.

As the wind died down, they could hear whimpering.

"Harry? Lewis?" came Alaric's voice in the darkness; "Come on – get up. Please. I came all this way to find you. You have to get up. Can you hear me?"

Spencer was the first to shake the water from his eyes. Readjusting to his dim surroundings, he saw the shack first, then Hotch being tended to by Rossi, and then his eyes fell on a small frame hunched over two long, dark figures, barely illuminated by the porch-light.

When Derek was able to see, his face fell.

"Spence…" he sighed; "Oh no."

Alaric was lying across her brothers, both of which had been shot. As she gazed into their eyes, she saw first fear, then calm, and then most miraculously of all, understanding. They reached up to stroke her hair, streaking their own blood in it, and groaned out as though comforting her.

"Please," she whimpered. Her eyes were wet with tears, tracking down her cheeks as she nuzzled into their hands. "Please get up."

Together, the boys managed to choke out; "Al-a-ric…"

Their hands fell. Their bodies gave sharp convulsions and their breaths became laboured, until finally, everything was silent, and grew still.

"Harry?" she whimpered; "Lewis? No…no, no, no, no."

They could only watch as her head fell forward and her tears fell freely from her eyes. Alaric had no idea who she was cursing when she cried out – God, Fate, the team. All she knew was that the pain in her heart was so great, she would never feel something like it again.

Spencer and Derek approached her. As they fell to kneel by her side, Spencer pulled her into a hug, and she nuzzled into him as though he were a lifeline. Derek's hand cupped her head, trying to shy her eyes away from the sight.

"Get inside the house," Hotchner barked at his remaining agents, his leg having rendered him unable to do much else; "Get Greg and Alice Truman, now!"

Around them, the trio were dimly aware of Rossi kicking open the door, Prentiss crying something out, and them plus a horde of police going inside the shack – the police that had been almost absent until then – but their main focus was taken from it. Derek glanced at the boys lying on the ground, with blood across their lips and green eyes, no longer void of intelligent, but frozen in a final understanding that must have brought them peace.

"They're dead," Alaric muttered; "They're dead…dead…my brothers…"

"Shh, sweetheart," Spencer soothed, but nothing could stop the constant stream of tears that poured down her face.

Harry and Lewis Truman were dead. And by the sounds of gunfire above them, Alaric was about to become an orphan.


	28. Aftermath

The incident left the team shaken. With glum faces they drove back to the BAU building, with a silent Alaric in Morgan's car, and five entries for the morgue; Harry, Lewis, Greg, Alice, and Heidi.

The victim had died. A wayward bullet – Harry's, they guessed by trajectory – had hit the back of her skull, killing her before she had the chance to escape. Alice and Greg held their ground until the end. True to profile, they had turned on each other, with both in separate rooms when the police infiltrated, and, seeing their fates in prison, opened fire.

Spencer had suggested having Alaric sedated, but in absence of her lashing out or showing overt aggressiveness, it had been turned down. The girl, now in the back of the large SUV, had her knees close to her chest and the seatbelt chafing her neck, which turned an angry red with the amount of times she rubbed against her restraint.

The pair had no idea what to do next. Surely there was trauma involved, but with her immaturity, weighed with her intelligence, there was no telling how to treat it. Spencer wanted to coax her out of her self-imposed silence while Derek wanted to leave her be, allowing her time to register what had happened, and perhaps even come to peace with it herself.

He knew it would never happen, but Derek was a dreamer.

"Alaric, do you want some water?" Spencer asked. He was awful with social cues, and this situation was far from conventional, but a lot of time had passed since lunch and she hadn't had a drink since.

Alaric didn't move. She neither looked up nor twitched, which made the agents glance at each other.

"Alaric, you need some water," he tried again, taking it out of his satchel. Derek noticed the girl roll her eyes and shake her head, apparently exasperated. "Dehydration is dangerous; two thirds of the body is made up of water, and it's said you should drink-"

"Leave me alone, Spencer!" she barked; "My brothers are dead, don't you get that? Do you think I care about _water_ right now? Every move I've made – coming to you, asking for help, leading you through this investigation – it got my brothers killed! And I have to live every day of my life knowing that if I was just a little smarter, they would be alive. I'm to blame for all of this. Me. So don't talk to me about water; I don't want to hear it."

With that, she flopped back down in silence, having exhausted what little energy she had left.

Spencer had no idea what to say. He looked at her, saw her eyes brimming with unshed tears, and all of the comforting words he could have said were suddenly at the forefront of his mind. But after her outburst, he was silent.

At the agency, Derek and Spencer tried to keep Alaric hidden. But a whole host of reporters and newsmen had streamed to the front of the building, finally with details of the murders, and hesitated not for the fact she was so young or so white in the face. Derek thrust at the ones that encroached on them and Spencer shielded her eyes, throwing a cover over her as they hurried to the agency, where she put on the ground and subsequently ran off into the building.

"Alaric-!" Spencer called after her, but in the confusion of hurrying agents trying to keep reporters at bay and the matter of paperwork, Derek told him to let her go.

"She won't run off. There are too many people outside for that. We'll look for her later, afterwards."

With a glum, heavy face, Spencer acquiesced. He allowed himself to be coaxed from the hallway, though not without lingering looks in the direction she had gone.

In the bullpen, JJ looked stressed and furious, what with the press outside and the other matter of her paperwork, and whatever dignity she could spare for the bereaved Alaric. The girl's face had been plastered on the news; they had apparently linked her with the murders, not that any of the FBI had made that bridge, and now it was being rumoured that she herself was a main component in them.

'Girl suspected of helping murderers in plot.'

'Young girl from recent search missions has been linked to homicides.'

'Alaric Truman, eleven, is rumoured to be the main component of serial killers' spree.'

It was awful. And it fell to JJ to sort the mess out, as it always did.

"Where is she?" Hotchner asked when he caught sight of the pair. His leg was bad, and he was listing to the side when he walked, but such was his determination that he had refused to go to the hospital, instead preferring to finish his work.

"She ran off – do you need to get that checked out?" Spencer asked with his water bottle in hand, pointing his finger towards his leg and furrowing his brow.

"What do you mean she 'ran off?'" he gave them both that unreadable stare; "We can't risk her trying to escape again. Not just because of the reporters, but because she's now more vulnerable than ever."

"Her brothers' deaths have probably pushed her over the edge. If she's not traumatised, she's furious at us for failing them," Prentiss agreed.

"She's angry, that's for sure," Spencer went to his desk. There, he discovered the half-read 'Poor Country My Fellow,' which had been left by Alaric some time before. His eyes went soft. "She blames herself for their deaths. She claims that by coming to us, she made a wrong move and set a course that, inevitably, led to them being killed."

Rossi and Prentiss spared a glance at each other. It was rare for them to feel worse for the perpetrators than for the innocent, deceased victim, but it seemed the Harry and Lewis' would play on their minds for a long time to come.

"We need to find her." Hotchner said.

"No need," Alaric had appeared at their side, being so small that no one had caught sight of her. She reached up to take Derek's hand, which squeezed hers comfortingly.

There was a visible relaxation in the team. JJ, who had been going through notes, stopped to give her a sad, tight smile, obviously uncomfortable.

"When do I get to make funeral arrangements?" she questioned the blonde.

"You don't have to worry about that. Once we've cleared everything up, we'll make all the preparations."

She gave a deep frown.

"You'll have a say in everything," she said; "As far as Garcia can tell, you have no relatives – at least, none still living. All of your parents' possessions have been transferred to you."

"Joy. An inheritance from two lunatics. What else could I ask for?" if her voice weren't so sardonic, it would have been funny.

There was a silence for a moment as each agent glanced at each other. Then, with a deep, angry sigh, Alaric muttered;

"When I'm adopted, where do I go?"


	29. One in Death

It was tough going, but soon enough, the reporters began to disappear, the agents held firm, and the rumours were rectified. Alaric's face was removed from the newsrooms – not the internet, mind, but newsrooms were as good as it was going to get – and it was known of the brave step she had made to bring her parents to light.

There were no tears to be had when they heard of the result. It was all so simple to them. Harry and Lewis Truman, while not the perpetrators, had been involved with the parent's malevolent deeds and in some ways, the cause of them. Their deaths were unfortunate by-products of a grand, gory conclusion.

Alaric would only be tended to by Spencer and Derek, who so far had been too busy to do so. Garcia tried her hand, but she either found the girl unresponsive, uncooperative, or eager to get away. Her face was a bone white; her eyes were dull, robbed of their purpose; her mouth was a constant hard frown that could be shifted by no means; even her hair, which had been so ignored by them as something paltry she cared for behind the scenes, seemed to have lost its vibrancy.

As each teammate caught sight of her at different times in the night, and the sight never changed, they realised that she had slipped into a quiet world of mourning.

"Where's JJ?" Derek asked at the conference room, both sides of him flanked by short stacks of paperwork. Spencer and Emily were with him, their own work having been a pressing issue, and each one took up opposing seats, as though they were sat to resemble a triad.

"With the parents," Prentiss replied; "I don't envy her that."

Spencer shook his head; "It's rare that we don't save at least one would-be victim. We were too late this time."

"Too late? We behaved rashly."

Three heads rose, the lights above giving them sight, and saw that Rossi had entered the room. He was an older gentleman, but as Derek noticed the deep frown lines on his face, the hair that seemed a little greyer than it had that morning and the heavy sigh in his tone, he fancied he'd aged in the night.

"Rashly?" Emily asked, to which he nodded.

"Lewis didn't have his finger on that trigger. I didn't see it before, but I noticed it afterwards. Harry, we couldn't have saved, but Lewis?" he shook his head, apparently tired of the thought, as if it had gone through his mind a dozen times before he brought it to them; "He died for no reason."

There was silence for a moment. With the lights, the conference room gave the illusion of it being day; sunlight was more natural, of course, and easier on the eyes than the bulbs, but it kept their brains fooled well enough not to feel tired.

With a quiet voice, Reid questioned; "Have you seen Alaric?"

Rossi was still for another moment. Lost was he in his regret. But soon enough, tapping into experience, he regained composure and spoke.

"I have. She's still where you left her."

"Doesn't have the heart to leave," Prentiss muttered darkly; "Where would she go?"

"She wants to know who she'll be adopted by." Derek mentioned.

"Have you told her we have no idea?" Rossi asked, and when the agent shook his head, sighed; "That's more news to break to her. Still, I'm sure the family will have some sort of heads-up about what's happened. If they didn't see the news before it went off air, that is."

Spencer stiffened. He went back to his paperwork, but there was a melancholy about his air that refused to go, and even when Rossi left – accompanied by Prentiss, for she needed 'more coffee to keep her heart pumping' – he was silent.

They sat in the quiet for a long time. Eventually, Derek spoke.

"Don't want her to go either?"

Spencer looked up. He blinked owlishly, having not expected Derek to care enough to read into his body language, but that was an error of judgement. Morgan was a kind man. He was compassionate about his teammates, as he was about most he met.

Derek set his paperwork to the side; "What can we do? Protocol says she has to go through the care system and be placed in a home."

"She'll be lost in the system. Or the family she gets won't understand, and she'll be sent away again. There are so many things that can go wrong, how can we just forget about her?" he asked.

"We don't forget. We can keep in contact, provided it's under the radar."

"And if we lose contact? If we get caught?"

"It's risky. It's also the only chance we've got to make sure she's happy."

The snort Spencer gave was short, so utterly unlike him that it unnerved Derek to hear. He looked at the younger agent, seeing how his eyes were dull and pained, and how he glanced every few seconds to the door as though the answer would appear.

Alaric was busying herself with wandering around the bullpen. She was still in her dim reverie, but her legs itched to explore, her mind content with its macabre idolisations.

She passed first a handful of agents thinking up excuses for the media. Next, it was another handful completing paperwork. A few feet later, and she had come to the walkway that bordered the pen, which she climbed and began to roam along as if in a trance. Somewhere, she was aware of Derek and Spencer. They were aware of her, too, for as she approached one of the doors she heard footsteps, before the genius appeared with a forced smile on his face.

"There you are," he said; "Where are you going?"

She said nothing.

"Go back to the bullpen. We'll be with you in a moment."

"I want to see Heidi's parents," was her response. It was enough to make Spencer freeze, looking back over his shoulder to where Derek appeared.

"I don't think that's possible, Alaric," Morgan tried to explain; "They're experiencing a lot of grief right now."

"They lost their daughter to my parents. I lost my brothers to them. We're experiencing the same grief."

"They might not see it that way. Come on, come here," he moved past Spencer to lift her into his arms, and she had no energy to break free of him; "What do you want to do instead?"

She thought for a moment, then, with a face deep in regret and weariness, she murmured; "Arrange their funerals."

Spencer felt the need to speak, leaning as he was against the doorframe; "Harry and Lewis-"

"Not just them," she insisted; "My parents, too. We have no relatives. That means I have to help give them the funeral they'd want."

The agents spared each other a glance. So determined was Alaric that they dare not risk defiance, and instead took her into the conference room, where she was put closest to Spencer and given a sheet of paper, complete with his pen.

"Write down what you think they would want, and we'll pass it over to JJ to give to the right people."

"If you want to stop at any point," Derek reminded her, "you can. After what your parents did to you, no one's going to pass judgement."

She gave a harsh snort; "We're all the same people in death."


	30. Moving On

The funerals were a simple affair.

With but the team and Alaric present, the Truman family were interred in the Earth, in a place where the trees were dense on one side and the other was a vast field of more graves, wherein people from eras long forgotten were laying in their final rest. The skies were heavy and black; no rain fell, and like Alaric the winds were silent.

Flanked by Spencer and Derek, the child gazed mournfully at her family's coffins. Morgan had paid for them out of his own wallet. He deigned even to buy her parents', but these were normal wood and with few luxuries, whereas Harry and Lewis' were a sleek black, polished brass handles painted gold, and complete with hefty bouquets on top that read out their names. As Spencer held Alaric's hand, she in her little black ensemble, he in a black suit and overcoat, he looked more a comforting uncle at his niece's side, in a time when the world had forgotten the true victims of a killing spree.

The priest said few words. It was a formality she had never believed in, but Alaric felt it fair that her family should receive their final rites. If there were a God watching down on them, she prayed that He would accept the twins without question, and that her parents should serve their mystic sentences as He saw fit to give them. That she had been cast as an orphan was her mortal burden. They had carried theirs.

The tombstones read out, on her wishes, that her family name was Aldis. The quadruplet graves were of the same black marble with gold lettering, and it was only to the knowledge of that team and their ill-fated charge that the name was false. History would do what history was good at doing; distort what had happened, until it never happened at all.

After the ceremony, Derek and Spencer took the girl for a walk. They passed graves new and grand, old and crumbled, worn and ancient. It was marvellous that they still had strength enough to stand. But the names had Alaric wondering; what lives did they lead? Were they too murderers of a different age, or the hardy lovers of romantic ballads, the cavaliers that rode towards danger and came out the immortal end? Were they the singers and songwriters, or the cloaks, the daggers, the dead gone too soon?

"It's sad," she muttered, which made both agents look at her for explanation; "These people. These lives. And we don't know a thing about them."

"Judging by the size and shape of their graves, we can determine a bit of their socio-economic situations, and even age-" Spencer said, but cut himself short. Facts would do nothing to soothe Alaric's mood. He said them more for his own benefit, and for now, he wanted not to say them at all.

"They were remembered by their families, sweet pea," Derek promised her; "They stayed alive through them, and now they stay alive through blood. Everyone you see here will have some relative that's still alive today. Just like your brothers have you."

Kneeling beside her, Derek balanced himself on one knee and brought her to his side, where he hugged her as though he thought she were about to disappear. Spencer, with his hands in his pockets, took that moment to scan the area – in the distance by the road, he could see a fleet of cars, some of which were the teams', and others that belonged to the social workers on standby for Alaric's departure.

"What's the point?" she asked, voice hopeless; "What's the point in living if in the end, everything dies? We're given a gift that's taken away from us when we get too ill, or too old, or too…too…"

Derek shushed her; "It's not about the end result, baby girl; it's about the journey. What and who we choose to be in the time we've got. If we're good people, and we can be proud of who we are when it's our time to go, then we can move on happily."

"Do you believe in God, Uncle Derek?"

He turned to look into her eyes. So deep and questioning where they that, for a moment, he forgot his ability to lie, and answered her with the plain truth.

"Sometimes I do."

"Why sometimes?"

"Faith is something you choose to give to something. It changes, it's challenged, you lose hope; lots of things can happen. In this job we see a lot of cruel things that make you wonder whether He's real. And sometimes, there are a few things that He gives us to show He still cares."

She cocked her head to one side; "Like what?"

With a bright smile, he put his finger to her nose, which was cold for the chill in the air. Her coat did little to stave it off.

He answered her with the honest truth again; "Like the days when everything goes right and you save a bunch of people. Like the days I go home and see my family, my dog, and I know it's all going to be alright. Like the days I wake up and I realise there's so much to be thankful for. So, yeah, sometimes I wonder if He's real, and I think I'm stupid for putting my faith in Him, but other times, He sends me little gifts to let me know He's still watching us."

Spencer had listened in quiet solemnity. He knew what Alaric was going to say before she said it, and smiled when she followed suit.

"What about on days like this?"

"Well," he said; "I'm hugging you, aren't I? And you tried your best to save your brothers, even when it meant you had to come to us alone. That's pretty scary, but you did it anyway. Yeah, I think I'm holding a gift right now."

She gave him her little smile, the one that was small and genuine, but filled with a sad disagreement. Her arms, which Spencer had noticed had slid into Derek's coat, perhaps for warmth, tightened once more around the man, and he watched as they gave one another a hug that spoke the volumes they could not.

Together, the trio went to the cars. There Alaric was passed to her new carers, not without a round of hugs with both Derek and Spencer, respectful nods to the rest of the team, and a brief, heartfelt wave to the graves that were being filled far away from them.

Under her breath, Derek swore he heard her mutter; "I'll see you soon."

As they watched the car rumbled out of the graveyard, their precious cargo strapped within, Derek and Spencer stood side-by-side, hands shoved in their pockets and eyes soft, almost sad. It had been ride to remember with Alaric. The child had taken them through an adventure they could never have imagined. And in her final moments, she retained the poise and grace that was her intelligence, while mourning somewhere deep inside herself that was unseen to them.

"We should head back to the agency," Hotchner said once the car was out of sight.

The team agreed, and went to their cars. It was then that Derek felt at his holster – a nervous habit he had gathered over the years – and realised something was wrong.

"Morgan?" Reid asked once he saw the man frantically checking himself; "What is it?"

"My gun!" he replied, voice urgent; "My gun; I had it in my holster, just in case, and I swear it was there before we went on that walk…"

Hotch, his attention caught by the commotion, approached them with a queer look in his eye, and when he was told suggested that he had left it in the car in respect for the deceased.

"No, I definitely had it in my holster. I remember checking."

"Then…"

The answer came to Reid and Morgan like a lightning bolt. They looked up in unison, staring deep into each other's eyes, and said simultaneously; "Alaric."

Further away, in the car, Alaric looked as buildings were interspersed by trees, and waited for a woodland thick enough. When it came, she said as casually as she could;

"Stop here, please."

The people in the front – a man and a woman, both with blonde hair and ID badges clipped to a matching pair of purple shirts – gave each other a smile.

"Not yet, dear," the woman said; "We have to take you to a new home, now."

"Yes," the man agreed, "We're-"

He looked up in the rear view mirror to see her pointing Derek's gun at them. She had a vague knowledge of how to cock it, and did so, keeping on her face the most serious expression she could.

"Please don't make this harder than it has to be. Stop here."

Trembling, the people did as they were told. Perhaps if she were not the bereaved child of serial killers, they would have tried to coax the gun from her hand, but as it stood they felt no risks should be taken.

As they stepped out of the car, Alaric kept her gun trained on them, and slowly backed into the forest. Her eyes were narrowed; she did not turn until she felt the brush of bushes and the trunks of trees, which is when she hurried off into the woodland, gun in hand.

From there, she went off in search of a river. Humming to herself a tune, she thought back to what Derek had told her, the conversations with Spencer, and wondered to herself what she had learnt from them;

'_I have an IQ of one hundred and eighty-seven, an eidetic memory, two doctorates, two Masters, can read two thousand words per minute…'_

'_Murder is never justified…'_

'_It's a book about Australia in the run-up to World War II. One of the longest novels in the world…'_

'_There's nothing to be scared of…'_

'_Dehydration is dangerous; two thirds of the body is made up of water…'_

'_I think you've got no idea how to use a gun…'_

Alaric glanced at the gun in her hand, and wondered if she could prove Derek wrong.


	31. Stand Firm

To Alaric, the moments before death were a time of thoughtful reflection, and she treated them as such. Before her there bubbled a quiet river, which from afar she could see meandered through trees bent with age, leaves rustling with a slow growing breeze, as though beckoning her to the next stage of being; the afterlife, if there were one.

That calm quiet was to her an ideal way to die. Surrounded as she was by nature, there was but a lone squirrel to bear witness, a friendly swallow in a tree to watch over her, and the school of fish she imagined swam under the water, much like tiny, streamlined raindrops on an ever-moving pane of glass, that would carry her to whatever lay beyond.

On the road, the scene was much different. A herd of cars hurtled down roads so unsuspecting, all with matching black metal hides, their rubber paws crunching against the tarmac in an ecstasy of speed. They went with agents in their bellies; the determined BAU team were on the hunt, and when they came across the car that had been taking Alaric away, now parked by a woodland and complete with two shaking social workers, it was Spencer who realised.

"I recognise that number plate," he explained to Derek; "It's her."

On his order, the agent pulled up on the edge of the road, careful not to let his tires rest on the grass. Behind him the team followed suit, with Rossi and Hotch hurrying towards the social workers, their faces twinned in pessimism.

For all their training, the pair were a wreck. The man babbled to the point of incoherency, shaking and white, whereas the woman had recovered enough to tell them what had gone on.

"She went into the woods," she finished her story, voice trembling; "She had the gun on us, and she just ran off. I have no idea where she was heading. Who knows who she'll try to hurt next?"

Those words were all it took to spark a hunt in the surrounding woodland. There, they found but traces of her; a branch bent too far for an animal to have bent it, or trampled undergrowth in the shape of little shoes.

"We'll follow these," Derek said, his voice resolute so as not to be argued with; "Reid and me will go down this way."

"We'll take the other side," Rossi responded where he stood by Hotch, and Prentiss and JJ nodded towards the strip of woodland that sat just within reach, as though by searching it they would find it was all an elaborate prank pulled in the confusion of grief.

The three pairs split, and went on their way.

Alaric lingered at the edge of the river. She had read they could go on for miles, sometimes out to the sea, and carry their burdens to the great watery grave. That her body would be so free was appealing to her. In a life where her main escapes were books, which served also as her prisons, she had resolved her life would end in the way she saw fit – her afterlife would go beyond what she had experienced.

Derek and Spencer saw her after twenty minutes of walking. Morgan lowered himself to the ground, hoping beyond hope that she would remain oblivious to them until it was too late. Reid, who had spotted her soon after, copied his action, but in doing so he worried a squirrel with his knee, and the creature streaked off with enough of a racket to wake the dead.

The girl turned. Gun pointed outwards, gripped by two hands, she saw nothing at first. Then she realised the two figures by the trees, one hulking, one lithe, and as they were shadowed could make out no discernible features.

"I've got a gun!" she said, though her voice trembled ever so slightly; "I'm not afraid to use it! Come out, and no one's hurt!"

There was a moment in which all were still. In the wake of the squirrel's leaving, there was only the faint rustle of birds in trees, themselves thin but plenty, and amplifying an already tense quiet.

"We don't want to hurt you, sweet pea," Derek was the first to rise. He did so with his hands up, walking out with eyebrows raised ever so slightly and lips parted.

Alaric's hand began to shake. Behind him, Spencer appeared, and for a moment it seemed as if her resolve would break, emotion flooding where there had been cool, pragmatic detachment.

"Alaric, put down the gun," Reid pleaded. His hands were visible, too, but they were in front of him, and he did a half-crouch as he approached her. Sudden movements would startle her, he thought, which could cause a reaction no one dared consider.

"No," she replied, turning it to him. Her arms shook under its weight, and that of her own nerves. "Stay back, Uncle Spencer. Stay back."

"We want to help you." He said. Still he was approaching her; slow and steady progress was made, but too slow, like the maddening final moments of a dynamic film.

"I have to go to them. I have to be with my brothers. Don't you see? This is the only way I can protect them."

"No, Alaric; this isn't the only way. You can do something more with your life instead of ending it. Hasn't there been enough death already?"

He dared step out again. This time, he was met by a thrust of the gun, and was forced to pause.

"Okay, okay," Spencer soothed; "Calm down, sweetheart."

"Every day I have to live with the fact that they're dead!" she cried, the tears springing freely; "I have to wake up and know that I'm responsible for my brothers' death! How can I do that? How can you expect me to do that? This is the only way – this is the only way I can make sure they're alright!"

Derek was the next to speak; "They are alright, baby girl. They're looked after now. And if they could talk to you, they'd tell you that this isn't the way; what you're doing now isn't going to help anyone."

The gun lowered slightly. Alaric was trembling.

"No one can imagine what you're going through right now, Alaric. But we can still help. Let us help you. Please." Spencer begged.

Once more, there was silence. Alaric looked first at them, and then down at her gun. Then, in an act of great willpower, she lowered it.

"Okay," she sobbed; "Okay."

What happened next was a blur. She recalled being bundled into two pairs of arms, crushed between two men, and heard herself sobbing as she was lifted and carried. Somewhere above, she saw two leaves chasing each other; they were in her vision for a moment, and then vanished.

"We've got her!" Derek's voice was distant; "We've got her!"

The only question that remained was what would happen to Alaric now that she was utterly alone.


	32. Second to the End

In the days that followed, Alaric was put through tests aplenty, including but not limited to psychiatric evaluations, and questionnaires meant to deem if she too had a mental condition brought about by her trauma.

Aside from the obvious, Alaric was a healthy girl. Spencer was relieved to hear she had begun talking again sometime during the third day of her hospital treatment, and though it cost him a pretty penny, Derek found the money to extend her stay, with Alaric's financial aids – given for the fact the case had received so much media attention and could not be ignored – doing the brunt of the work.

Spencer took up Derek's usual seat one night, what with the agent busy with paperwork and other potential cases. Slowly, the world outside was moving on, but for Alaric there was still the pain of loss, and so Reid distracted her with magic tricks and card games.

She sat cross-legged on her hospital bed, dressed in clothes bought for her by Derek, as she watched Spencer do tricks both weird and wonderful.

"What do you want to do next?" he asked, her eyes trained on his hands; "With your being in here, what do you want to do once you're out?"

There was a shrug; "I want to move in with Uncle Derek."

He paused. Morgan had discussed the same; he was in deep talks with child protection agencies, social workers and the like, wanting to take Alaric from her cesspit of a future and instead, give her a chance in life. But dare he tell her that, he feared the surprise would be blown wide open, and if it fell through her disappointment would provoke another suicide attempt.

"Why?" he decided to ask.

She glanced about her hospital room. An unvarying shade of white, it hurt her eyes to see, for the only difference in colour were in the bright pink flowers Derek had bought for her, and the light blue curtains which blocked out the moon. She imagined outside there rested a beautiful garden with benches for the elderly patients, the terminal, and critically ill; by that time, it would have been bathed in a sea of silver, the bushes made beautiful with moonbeams, with the trees the ethereal messengers of something unknown.

"Why not?" she replied. "What else have I got?"

"Enough brains to attract the notice of MENSA?"

"Uncle Derek told me. I don't want to join. It's stupid."

"I'm part of MENSA," he protested, and the grin that spread across her face was impish.

"Show-off."

Together they laughed and joked, unaware of time passing, until Spencer glanced at the clock and it was nine thirty. He advised her to sleep, to which Alaric wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

"I'm in a hospital. There is no bedtime."

"I'm fairly certain there is."

"Not that I have to pay attention to it. They do what I want them to here. Some actively avoid me," though there was a speculative air in her voice, as if she were observing creatures different to herself, Alaric's eyes were soft and sad, telling Spencer all he needed to know. She was lonely there. People saw not her, but her parents, and even though the record had been set straight, Alaric was still considered to be a sociopath not yet discovered, a serial killer meant for future sprees.

"How does that make you feel?" he questioned, his own voice soft.

She shrugged; "It's convenient. They do what I ask without my explaining it. I'm not bothered by conversations that mean nothing – no 'Are you alright, dear?' or 'How are you feeling, love?'"

"But how does that make you _feel?_" he asked again. This time, he leaned forward, displacing the cards from where they sat on the table to rest his coffee cup down.

Alaric fixed him with her inscrutable gaze. For the first time in a long time, the hardness to them melted, and she was left looking the vulnerable young child she was.

"Bad," she admitted.

"Bad how?" he prompted.

"People don't see me when they look at me. They see news reports, my parents, statistics, if they're smart – but they never see me. I…it makes me feel like I'm not a person anymore, and it's not my fault."

He nodded. It was a responsible conclusion to come to. And he had noticed the sideways glances between the nurses, the whispers that silenced when either agent entered the room.

"People can be cruel when they want to be." Spencer said; "And sometimes, they don't even realise they are."

She nodded. She respected Spencer's words, his knowledge that far extended her, but still there was an urge to argue; to tell him, despite herself, that the nurses knew their cruelty and were happy to go about it. Without evidence, she had no basis to say it.

There was more silence for a while. Reid stood up and moved to sit beside her, wrapping her in his arms with a small smile on her face. She was to him an anchoring weight – her tiny form kept him on Earth, focused to the point where his mind no longer wandered, and his hands needed nothing to keep themselves occupied.

"Can you and Uncle Derek adopt me?" she asked after a while.

He was quiet.

"I don't want to go to someone I don't know. They won't understand. They'll be angry when I don't want to go outside, and they'll want me to do normal kid things; they won't let me be me. I want you and Uncle Derek to adopt me, so I can live with you."

"We'd have to be partners to adopt you," he reminded her quietly.

"Then one of you adopt me, and I'll live with that person, but be raised by both."

"Alaric-"

"Please?" she gave him her most innocent, pleading look, again a vulnerable child rather than an intelligencer; "I don't want to leave you guys behind. I don't want you guys to forget about me."

"We could never-" he was interrupted by a sharp look, and sighed; "Fine. I'll see what I can do. No promises."


	33. Loyalty

Alaric sat on her new bed, complete with covers themed after the Avengers, and plump, white pillows rested on a mahogany headboard. Cross-legged, she was upright towards the headboard, fiddling with some device she'd no idea about; a gift from her new family, and one she had quickly become frustrated with.

The room surrounding her was in accordance to her tastes. The bed was flanked at both sides by tables, each with space enough for an alarm clock and a dog-eared soft rabbit; there was a television mounted on the red walls, with the remote somewhere on a rectangular coffer at the end of her bed, wherein she kept a few cherished memories of her brothers; posters were generously put to one side – the side not covered by her window – and all featured some superhero or other, which one of her new family members was ecstatic about; and there was a lone, beloved picture of her brothers that sat on the mantelpiece, just below her television, their smiling faces giving her peace in a time that seemed to have none.

As she fiddled with the device, Alaric didn't notice the door open behind her. Behind the sleek wood painted white, there appeared a man in the shadows of the hallway, his face concealed by them like that of a cloaked swordsman. He approached the bed quietly, without word. The movement brought him out into the glorious light, revealing him to be a bleary-eyed Derek, who with a tired hand and gaping yawn reached over to tap her shoulder.

Alaric started. Calmed only by the sight of her new 'father,' who to her had become a pinnacle of justice, the girl turned back to her work.

"I put you to bed four hours ago," he yawned. He balanced himself on the bed with his hands, bending over as though to convey how weary he was; "Why are you still awake?"

"It's Uncle Spencer's fault. He gave me this, and I can't figure out how to work it." She replied, her eyes fixated on the little box, which he had told her was called a 'Chinese Puzzle Box' but she was sure was something made out of Hell.

Derek reached over and took it from her; "You can play with it tomorrow."

"I'm not playing with it – I'm conquering it."

"Alright, Queen Victoria, settle down," his grin was warm with affection as he coaxed her into bed, where he pulled the blanket over her and moved to kiss her forehead; "You're an odd kid."

Alaric's eyes looked up at him in a slight awe; "You chose to adopt me."

"That's because you're a great odd kid," he put his finger on her nose; "We'd never have been able to get you if it weren't for Uncle Spencer."

"When are you going to tell me how he convinced them?"

"When you're older," he replied; "and when I actually understand how he did it myself. You know how he gets when he's explaining things. Forgets that not everyone's a miniature genius."

There was the distinct sound of a throat clearing at the door, and both looked to see an equally bleary-eyed Spencer, sporting a boyish pair of pyjamas in the style of a Marvel comic book collection and a mop of messy hair.

"I explained my explanation to you," he reminded Derek as he approached; "Alaric, if he'd let me tell you what happened, you would understand."

"No. We made enough mistakes in the case. No more giving Alaric adult information – not until she's eighteen. Right?" he emphasised his words as though it would make a difference, eyebrows raised and eyes fixated. It was a rule Spencer had readily agreed on. Despite it, they saw the vehemence with which Alaric protested, and felt that familiar judgement call that lined so many parental decisions.

"Why aren't you asleep?" Spencer asked in an effort to change the subject.

"You gave me the Chinese Puzzle Box, and it kept me up. So, I'm not asleep because of you."

"Logical, but not inerrant. I gave you the Puzzle Box with the express instructions that you go to bed at normal time, and don't wake either of us up again."

"You yourself made an error of judgement – you knew I'd stay awake to figure it out, and yet gave it to me anyway. Ergo, I'm not in the wrong."

Spencer shook his head and bent down to kiss the crown of hers. He had come to enjoy their debates, though there never quite was a clear winner, and to be without them now would be a grave hole in the agent's life.

Much had changed in the few short months Alaric Truman became Alaric Morgan. Spencer was given his own room in Derek's house so as to visit whenever he was wanted, or needed, as Alaric emphasised. The girl would often call him in the middle of the night to check he was still alive, and so procedures were put in place to ensure them all a good night's rest.

Spencer's official title was Godfather. Penelope had taken up Godmother. Derek was her legal guardian, and many referred to him as her father; she would come to him with dilemmas of the day, such as opening jars and cans, and would save her more intellectual questions for Reid when she next saw him. Their family was unconventional, but convention had never been a strong point in any of their lives.

"Uncle Derek?" Alaric asked as they straightened to leave.

"What is it, baby girl?"

"I want to go to a real school."

The two men glanced at one another. Home schooling was something Reid wanted her to continue, more for the fact he bore the emotional scars of being a prodigy than for the state of public schools. There were teachers that came to the house and a nanny that could be trusted to care for her when they worked; to get rid of them would mean a great deal of money saved, but also the constant fear of bullying.

"Are you sure?" he asked; "It worries me that you might not…"

"Bullies don't concern me. If they get really annoying, I'll just confuse them in class, and run when I have to. Besides, I have you two now."

They smiled at her. With gentle hands, they fluffed her hair and ignored the indignant squealing, both with smiles of contentment.

"Love you guys," she admitted, mumbling it into her pillow.

Their reply was strong, without hesitation, and in unison; "We love you too, sweetheart."


End file.
